Welcome to the Sydney Health Law blog. 

Sydney Health Law is the focal point for health law research, teaching and community engagement at Sydney Law School. It builds on two decades of excellence in teaching and research across all areas of health law.

As a centre in the University of Sydney Law School, Sydney Health Law is active in organising seminars and conferences on topics of relevance to health governance, law and ethics and in building links with academic, community and professional organisations in Australia and overseas.

On this blog, we provide information on the latest developments and events in health law, ethics, and governance, focusing both nationally and globally. The blog’s main contributors are academic staff affiliated with Sydney Health Law, a research centre at the University of Sydney’s law faculty. Our academics research and teach in a broad range of areas related to health law and ethics, including in Sydney Law School’s Master of Health Law program. We hope that you’ll visit regularly, and participate in wide-ranging discussion on topics including the ethical dilemmas of biobanks, developments in chronic disease prevention, and the issues posed by refusal of consent to medical treatment – to name just a few of our many interests.

Dr Roger Magnusson is Professor of Health Law and Governance at Sydney Law School. He teaches Critical Issues in Public Health Law and Law, and Law, Business and Healthy Lifestyles within the Master of Health Law program. Roger is a member of the Public Health Scientific & Technical Expert Group (STEG) convened by Public Health Division of the Pacific Community (SPC). He was the principal author of the WHO technical report, Advancing the Right to Health: The Vital Role of Law, published by WHO in 2017, and co-author of the Update and Summary Guide to the Report. Roger’s research interests include public health law generally; regulatory responses to non-communicable diseases (including tobacco control, obesity prevention, public health nutrition); global health law; and law, governance and health development.

Dr Belinda Reeve is a lecturer at Sydney Law School, and teaches Information Rights in Health Care and Fundamentals of Regulation for the Master of Health Law program. Prior to her appointment at the law school, she worked as a Law Fellow at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, at Georgetown University. Her current research focuses on legal and regulatory options for creating a healthier food environment, including through product reformulation, restrictions on food advertising to children, and innovative obesity prevention measures at local government level.

Professor Cameron Stewart is a director of Sydney Health Law at Sydney Law School, as well as an associate of Sydney Health Ethics. He has worked in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and has practiced commercial law at Phillips Fox Lawyers. His previous appointment was at Macquarie Law School, where he spent 10 years, the last of which as Dean. He was the Director of CHGLE for 4 years (2009-2012), was the Acting president of the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Health Law and Ethics in 2008-2010 and was the Vice-President of the Australasian Association of Bioethics and Health Law from 2010-2013.

Cameron teaches Death Law, Health Care and Professional Liability, and Government Regulation, Health Policy and Ethics for the Master of Health Law program. Cameron is also the co-editor of the Ethics and Health Law news service and the Clinical Ethics Resource. He is Health Law Reporter editor for the Journal of Law and Medicine. He also runs a website on Discovering Australian Guardianship Law.

Dr Chris Rudge is a lecturer in Sydney Law School at the University of Sydney. Currently, he teaches Foundations of Law, Torts and Mental Illness: Law and Policy. Chris’s research takes place at the intersection of law, psychiatry and biomedicine. Recent projects include analysis of the regulation of stem cell advertising, the therapeutic goods personal importation scheme, work contending that vaccine mandates are a legally and morally justified public health neccessity, work on health practitioner regulation and work on the bioethics and regulation of somatic cell genome editing.

In the past, Chris’ research has focused on the the history, politics and literature associated with psychiatric interventions and technologies, including unorthodox treatments (eg, the e-meter, telepsychiatry, deep sleep therapy, and rTMS).

Dr Olugbenga Olatunji is a lecturer at Sydney Law School at the University of Sydney. He holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Ibadan, a Master of Laws from the University of Cambridge, and a Doctor of Philosophy (Law) from the University of Tasmania. His research explores the intersections between the conferral of intellectual property-related monopoly rights to private entities and access of poor populations (especially in the East African community) to quality and affordable medicines.

Dr Olugbenga’s research also extends to other IP-related subject-matters of both domestic and international concern. These fields of research include the analysis of free trade agreements, anti-counterfeiting laws, and the implications of developed-country-favoured preferential agreements on the freewill of low- and middle-income countries to use IP rights exceptions.

Dr Yixian Li is a lecturer at Yunnan University and a visiting scholar in Sydney Law School at the University of Sydney. She holds a Bachelor of Laws from the China University of Political Science and Law, a Master of Laws from the China University of Political Science and Law, and a Doctor of Philosophy (Law) from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (Italy).

Dr Li was a Visiting Scholar in Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law and Swiss Institute of Comparative law. Her research interests include health law and tort law, legal frameworks for regulating genetic technology, protection of personal data, regulation of genetic tests and clinical trials.