Tag: health development
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Vaping law reform: Protecting the Pacific
Vaping is on the rise and governments are scrambling to respond. Guest authors Sophia Bleakley, Clare Gim and Helen Zhang analyse the issues.
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Regulating harmful cross-border advertising: can it be done?
How do governments prevent their citizens from being exposed to harmful online advertising which originates outside of their jurisdiction? Such advertising is referred to as cross-border advertising. Advertisers have taken advantage of a digitised, interconnected world to reach broad audiences (including children) across national borders.
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Alcohol causes 3 million deaths each year. Eliminating conflicts of interest is vital to bringing this number down
Alcohol causes three million deaths each year, including 13.5% of deaths amongst those aged 20-39 years. But the personal and economic costs of alcohol-related harm are not met by the alcohol industry.
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Another step forward for the Pacific Legislative Framework
Pacific Island Countries and Territories have some of the world’s highest rates of health risks. In response, the Public Health Division of the Pacific Community (SPC) has been driving an initiative for tackling the key risk factors: the Pacific Legislative Framework.
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Rule of law in the Covid-19 response
The International Development Law Organisation (IDLO) has released a short publication that highlights the role of law in governments’ response to Covid-19. See here. Established by international treaty in 1988, IDLO is an inter-governmental organisation devoted to upholding the rule of law. Australia, and the United States, are among its 37 member parties, which span…
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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…
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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…
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Update and summary guide to the WHO report: Advancing the right to health: the vital role of law
In September 2018 the World Health Organisation published an Update and Summary Guide to the report Advancing the Right to Health: the Vital Role of Law. [See here for a previous post on the full report]. The summary Guide, like the full report, was a collaboration between the World Health Organisation, International Development Law Organisation,…
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Trump: the war on breastfeeding
The New York Times reports that US officials threatened to unleash trade sanctions and withdraw military aid from Ecuador unless it withdrew a resolution at May’s World Health Assembly calling on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding”. The article is worth reading in its entirety. As the father of a currently breastfeeding infant, I…
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Advancing the Right to Health: the Vital Role of Law
More than 20 years ago, Chris Reynolds, an Australian pioneer in our understanding of public health law, wrote that: “law is a powerful tool, as potent as any of the medical technologies available to treat disease”, and yet “our understanding of the potential of [public health law]…to help…citizens to lead longer and healthier lives, is…
Sydney Health Law 