Linda D. and Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law; Faculty Director, O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law (Spring)
B.A., State University of New York at Brockport; J.D., Duke; LL.D., (Hon.) State University of New York

Office Location: McDonough 574

Assistant: Angie Villareal

Phone: 6585

Office Hours:

By appointment.

Biography

Lawrence O. Gostin, an internationally acclaimed scholar, is the Linda D. and Timothy J. O'Neill Professor of Global Health law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he directs the O'Neill Institute for National and global Health Law. He served as Associate Dean for Research at Georgetown Law until 2008. he is also Professor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities-a Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is Visiting Professor of Public Health (Faculty of Medical Sciences) and Research Fellow (Centre for Socio-Legal Studies) at Oxford University. He is the Health Law and Ethics Editor, Contributing Writer, and Columnist for the Journal of the American Medical Association. In 2007, the Director General of the World Health Organization appointed Prof. Gostin to the International Health Regulations (IHR) Roster of Experts and the Expert Advisory Panel on Mental Health.  
 

Prof. Gostin has three honorary degrees. In 1994, the Chancellor of the State University of New York conferred an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree. In 2006, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Vice Chancellor awarded Cardiff University's (Wales) highest honor, an Honorary Fellow. In 2007, the Royal Institute of Public Health designated Prof. Gostin as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health (FRSPH).

Prof. Gostin, an elected lifetime Member of the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences, serves on the Board on Health Sciences Policy and the Committee on Sciece, Technology, and Law. He currently chairs the IOM Committee on National Preparation for Mass Disasters, and has chaired Committees on privacy, genomics, and priosoner research. The IOM awarded Prof. Gostin the Adam Yarmolinsky Medal for distinguished service to further its mission of science and health. He received the Public Health Law Association's Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award "in recognition of a career devoted to using law to improve the public's health" presented at the CDC. Internationally, Prof. Gostin received the Rosemary Delbridge Memorial Award from the National Consumer Council (U.K.) for the person "who has most influenced Parliament and government to act for the welfare of society." He also received the Key to Tohoko University (Japan) for distinguished contributions to human rights in mental health.

Prof. Gostin has led major law reform initiatives in the U.S., including the drafting of the Model Emergency Health Powers Act (MEHPA) to combat bioterrorism and the "Turning Point" Model State Public Health Act. He is also leading a drafting team on developing a Model Public Health Law for the World Health Organization. He is currently also drafting a "Framework Convention on Human Services" for the World Bank-a multilateral treaty on the health care professional capacity in poor and middle income countries.

In the United Kingdom, Lawrence Gostin was the Legal Director of the National Association for Mental Health, Director of the National Council of civil Liberties (the UK equivalent of the ACLU), and a Fellow at Oxford University. He helped draft the current Mental Health Act (England and Wales) and brought several landmark cases before the European Commission and Court of Human Rights.

Prof. Gostin's latest books are: Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (University of California Press, Forthcoming 2010); Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (University of California Press, 2nd ed. 2008); Public Health Ethics: Theory, Policy and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2007); The AIDS Pandemic: Complacency, Injustice, and Unfulfilled Expectations (University of North Carolina Press, 2004); The Human Rights of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities: Different But Equal (Oxford University Press, 2003). He is currently working on a book for Harvard University Press, entitled: Global Health Law: International Law, Global Institutions, and World Health.