Join us for the launch of Declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern: Between International Law and Politics with co-authors Mark Eccleston-Turner, a Senior Lecturer in Global Health Law at King's, and Clare Wenham, Associate Professor of Global Health Policy at LSE.

This lecture is part of the 'Age of Health' series in which experts from the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine at King's talk to activists and leaders about one of the defining issues of our age: health.

Panel

• Simon Rushton, Professor of International Politics (University of Sheffield)
• Gian Luca Burci, Professor of International Law (Graduate Institute of Geneva)

Abstract

Amid a global health crisis, the process for declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is at a crossroads.

As a formal declaration by the World Health Organization, a PHEIC is governed by clear legislation as to what is, and what is not, deemed a global health security threat. However, it has become increasingly politicized, and the legal criteria now appear to be secondary to the political motivation or outcome of the announcement. Addressing multiple empirical case studies, including COVID-19, this multidisciplinary book explores the relationship between international law and international relations to interrogate how a PHEIC is declared and its role in how we collectively respond to outbreaks.