Global Public Health Security

International law, policy and public health emergencies

In this course, you will work through historical public health security events and pandemics and see how society uses the rule of law to control outbreaks and threats of the use of biological weapons. The focus of this course is on policy, international law and public health history, but some examples will include U.S. domestic law. The course begins with a history of law and global public health and biological disasters and the use of biological weapons. Then, the course considers how the rule of law is used by society to protect society through international law, public health law using concepts of distributive justice and ethics. Then we explore incidents of public health outbreaks like Ebola, SARS and Zika. COVID-19 is included in some of the examples.