Year: 2019
-
Australia and the language of fire
There are currently 100 fires burning across New South Wales. Fifty of them are uncontained, as the weather swings between baking hot, and blustery southerlies. Here in Sydney, the sky looks yellow. Soot is washing up on Sydney beaches, and clouds of dust are turning New Zealand glaciers pink. According to the Bureau of Meteorology…
-
International Guidelines on Human Rights, Healthy Diets and Sustainable Food Systems: could they make a difference?
The BMJ has published an Opinion calling on the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Dr Michelle Bachelet, to jointly initiate a process to develop International Guidelines on Human Rights, Healthy Diets, and Sustainable Food Systems. 180 signatories from 38 countries have supported…
-
Smoke-free streets and lanes: a growing headache for big tobacco?
Smoke-free Melbourne? One of Melbourne’s quintessential experiences is to stroll its laneways, many lined with restaurants. Smoking here would spoil things for everyone. In 2014, Causeway Lane, a small restaurant strip running between Bourke Street Mall and Little Collins Street, went smokefree. You can read reactions to this smoke-free pilot here. Three more laneways were…
-
Breastfeeding rooms in US federal buildings: who would have thought?!
Last year the US watered down a resolution of the World Health Assembly that would have called on States to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding”, and to provide technical support to “halt inappropriate promotion of foods for infants and young children”. A step too far, apparently, given the economic interests of US-domiciled formula companies. See…
-
Abortion law reform and conscientious objectors in NSW
New South Wales is on the cusp of reforming its decades-old abortion laws. Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 which passed the State’s Legislative Assembly last week abolishes the triumvirate of criminal offences for abortion in the Crimes Act 1900 (ss 82-84), together with any residual common law liability for performing an abortion. It creates…
-
Infrastructure…non-communicable diseases: Australia’s pivot to the Pacific islands an opportunity to take Pacific health priorities seriously
Barely 100 metres from Australia’s High Commission in Nukoalofa, Tonga, lies this plaque – erected by the People’s Republic of China. In 2012, China upgraded a small section of road in the Tongan capital, installing drains beside the sidewalk in a town prone to flooding. Close by, in other parts of the town, rain collects…
-
Strengthening law’s role in improving Australia’s diet
Alexandra Jones and Belinda Reeve This post originally appeared in MJA Insight and is re-posted with the MJA’s kind permission. The original article can be found at this link. THE law can be a powerful tool for improving population health, but remains underutilised in addressing Australia’s huge burden of diet-related disease. Taken in a broad…
-
Medical treatment in the best interests of the child: onshore, and offshore
There are troubling disparities between the medical treatment that children receive, depending on whether they live onshore – in Australia, or offshore – in immigration detention in places like Nauru. But do these disparities have a legal basis? Medical treatment and the best interests of the child: onshore Exercising their parens patriae jurisdiction, Australian Supreme…
-
Upcoming event: the 2019 Food Governance Conference
Sydney Health Law is hosting the second Food Governance Conference from the 3rd to the 5th of July this year. The Conference is a collaboration between Sydney Law School, the University’s Charles Perkins Centre and The George Institute for Global Health. The 2019 Conference will explore how law, policy, and regulation address (or contribute to)…
-
The World Health Organisation, the International Health Regulations, ebola and other pandemics: seminar announcement
The International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) are the primary global instrument for responding to, and seeking to prevent and limit the impact of public health emergencies of international concern, including communicable diseases with pandemic potential. The International Health Regulations are legally binding on all World Health Organization (WHO) Member States, including Australia. The IHR were…
Sydney Health Law 