"Pandemics, plans, and the public: regulatory discourses in global health governance" by Prof Belinda Bennett

Past Event

Date
 19 May 2014, 6:30pm - 7:45pm

Location
 Seminar Room 1, Oxford Martin School
34 Broad Street, (Corner of Catte and Holywell Street), Oxford, OX1 3BD

This seminar is hosted by the Institute for Science and Ethics, an Oxford Martin School Institute and the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics

Speaker: Professor Belinda Bennett, is Professor of Health Law in the Health Law Research Centre, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology

Summary: Contemporary debates around public health and preparedness for pandemic influenza reveal a range of discourses on relationships – the relationships between countries in a globalised world, between individuals and the broader community, and between differing understandings of risk and how it should best be managed. Legal and regulatory discourses play an important role within these debates, often providing a formal framework for negotiating complex aspects of these relationships, while at the same time, providing important insights into the relationships themselves. This paper analyses the different relational strands evident in regulatory debates about public health and pandemic preparedness and explores the degree to which cultural, economic and legal differences shape the relationships in question and in turn, public health and public health law.

About the Speaker

Belinda Bennett is Professor of Health Law in the Health Law Research Centre, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Before joining QUT in 2014 she worked at the University of Sydney for many years and from 2008-14 was Professor of Health and Medical Law at Sydney Law School.

Belinda’s research addresses the legal implications of new technologies in health care, as well as the interface between health law and globalisation. She is the author of Health Law’s Kaleidoscope: Health Law Rights in a Global Age (Ashgate 2008) and editor of Health Rights and Globalisation (Ashgate 2006).

Her other publications include: B Bennett and GF Tomossy (eds) Globalization and Health: Challenges for Health Law and Bioethics (Springer 2006); B Bennett, T Carney and I Karpin (eds) Brave New World of Health (Federation Press 2008); MDA Freeman, S Hawkes and B Bennett (eds) Law and Global Health (OUP, forthcoming, 2014).

She is the Deputy Editor of the Journal of Law and Medicine, and a member of the international editorial board for several other journals. She is currently working with Terry Carney (University of Sydney) on an Australian Research Council-funded project on “Legal and Ethical Preparedness for Pandemic Influenza.”