The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Health Law addresses some of the most critical issues facing scholars, legislators, and judges today: how to protect against threats to public health that can quickly cross national borders, how to ensure access to affordable health care, and how to regulate the pharmaceutical industry, among many others. When matters of life and death literally hang in the balance, it is especially important for policymakers to get things right, and the making of policy can be greatly enhanced by learning from the successes and failures of approaches taken in other countries. Where there are "common challenges" in law and health, there is much to be gained from experiences elsewhere. Thus, for example, countries that suffered early from the COVID-19 pandemic provided valuable lessons about public health interventions for countries that were hit later. Accordingly, the Handbook considers key health law questions from a comparative perspective.
In health law, common challenges are frequent. In addition to ones already mentioned, there are questions about addressing the social determinants of health (e.g., poverty and pollution), organizing health systems to optimize use of available resources, ensuring that physicians provide care of the highest quality, protecting patient privacy in a data-driven world, and properly balancing patient autonomy with the interest in preserving life when reproductive and end-of-life decisions are made.
This
Handbook's wide scope and comparative take on health law are particularly timely. Economic globalization has made it increasingly important for different countries to harmonize their legal rules. Students, practitioners, scholars, and policymakers need to understand how health laws vary across national boundaries and how reforms can ensure a convergence toward an optimal set of legal rules, or ensure that specific legal arrangements are needed in particular contexts. Indeed, comparative analysis has become essential for legal scholars, and
The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Health Law is the only resource that provides such an analysis in health law.
Tamara Hervey LLB, PhD, FAcSS, PFHEA, MFPH, studied at Glasgow and Sheffield, and held academic posts at Durham, Manchester, Nottingham, and Sheffield Law Schools, before joining The City Law School in 2021. She is Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law ad hominem.
Hervey researches, teaches, and writes on European Union health law; on comparative health law and policy; on equality law; on interfaces between biosciences and (European) law; on social rights; on legal research methodologies; and on legal pedagogy. She is author of 18 books and over 100 other publications. One of the first to the field, Hervey has been writing on EU health law since the 1990s. She works with a large network of academics across Europe and in North America.
Hervey serves as Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee's Brexit Inquiries. She also served the House of Lords EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee Inquiry into Brexit and crossborder healthcare. She has given keynote presentations about EU law, trade, health and Brexit, to organizations including the Royal Society of Medicine, British Medical Association, Health Services Research UK, and the Scottish Lawyers European Group. She also gave Expert evidence to Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health, Republic of Ireland, on the legal implications of Brexit in the health sector.
David Orentlicher is the Judge Jack and Lulu Lehman Professor at UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law and director of the UNLV Health Law Program. Widely recognized for his expertise in health law and constitutional law, Dr. O has testified before Congress, had his scholarship cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, and has served on many national, state, and local commissions. A graduate of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Law School, Dr. O is author of
Matters of Life and Death and co-author of
Health Care Law and Ethics, now in its 9th edition. He has published numerous articles and essays on a wide range of topics, including health care reform, physician aid in dying, reproductive decisions, affirmative action, and presidential power, and his work has appeared in leading professional journals, such as the
New England Journal of Medicine and the
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), as well as in the
New York Times,
Time,
USA Today,
CNN Opinion, the
Chicago Tribune, and other major newspapers.
In addition to his academic background, Dr. O brings important hands-on experience. He previously directed the American Medical Association's Division of Medical Ethics, and he has worked on health care reform and other issues as a member of the Nevada legislature and the Indiana legislature.
