For Immediate Release
April 12, 2007

Contact:
Kara Tershel, (202) 662-9500

Associate Dean Gostin

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Georgetown University Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff is pleased to announce the appointment of Georgetown Law Associate Dean Lawrence O. Gostin as the Linda and Timothy O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law. Gostin will be formally installed in a ceremony at the Law Center on April 19, in conjunction with the inauguration of the Linda and Timothy O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law on April 20.

"As one of the world’s foremost global health law experts, Larry Gostin is the perfect person to hold this important new professorship," said Aleinikoff. "We are deeply grateful to Linda and Timothy O’Neill, whose generous support of our global health law program will have far-reaching effects well beyond the classroom."

An internationally acclaimed scholar, Gostin is associate dean for research and academic programs at Georgetown Law, where he directs the Linda and Timothy O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. He is also professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Center for Law & the Public's Health, a collaborating center of the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown.

Gostin is visiting professor of public health (faculty of medical sciences) and research fellow (Centre for Socio-Legal Studies) at Oxford University, as well as a fellow of the Royal Institute of Public Health. Additionally, he serves as the health law and ethics editor and contributing writer for the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Gostin has two 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.

An elected lifetime member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM)/National Academy of Sciences (NAS), Gostin serves on the board on health sciences policy and the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. He currently chairs the IOM Committee on Health Informational Privacy and Research, and has chaired committees on genomics and prisoner research.

In 2006, the IOM awarded Gostin the Adam Yarmolinsky Medal for distinguished service to further its mission of science and health. During that same year, 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".

Internationally, 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.

Gostin has lead 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.

In the U.K., Gostin was the legal director of the National Association for Mental Health, director of the National Council of Civil Liberties (the U.K. 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.

Gostin is the author of "Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint" (University of California Press and Milbank Memorial Fund, 2nd ed. forthcoming 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); and "Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader" (University of California Press and Milbank Memorial Fund, 2002).

The O’Neill Professorship was established with a gift by Linda and Timothy O’Neill. Timothy O’Neill is the senior strategy officer at Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York. A 1977 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, he is a member of Georgetown University’s Board of Directors and chairman of the finance committee. Linda O’Neill graduated from Georgetown University School of Nursing & Health Studies in the same year and is the current chair of the school’s Board of Visitors.

Linda and Timothy O’Neill are the trustees of the Linda and Timothy O’Neill Foundation. In 2001, they made a leadership-level naming gift for the O’Neill Law Alumni Center in the Eric E. Hotung International Law Center Building at Georgetown University Law Center. They are also supporters of Georgetown University School of Nursing & Health Studies, where they funded the O’Neill Family Foundation Clinical Simulation Center in St. Mary’s Hall.

 

About Georgetown University Law Center 

Georgetown University Law Center is one of the world's premier law schools. It has the largest full-time faculty in the nation and is pre-eminent in several areas, including constitutional, international, tax and clinical law. Drawing on its Jesuit heritage, it has a strong tradition of public service and is dedicated to the principle that law is but a means, justice is the end. With this principle in mind, Georgetown Law has built an environment that cultivates an exchange of ideas and the pursuit of academic excellence. It brings together an extraordinarily varied group of teachers, scholars and practitioners, as well as an outstanding student body.

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