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Emerging Infectious Diseases * Volume 2 * Number 4 * October-December 1996
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News and Notes

ABA Sponsors Program on Law and Emerging Infectious Diseases

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In August 1996, the International Health Law Committee, International Law
and Practice Section, American Bar Association, sponsored a program
entitled "Law and Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases" to examine
how the emergence and reemergence of infectious diseases affects
international and U.S. federal, state, and local law. The issues addressed
included international legal rules on infectious disease control and the
need for their revision in light of emerging and reemerging infectious
diseases; emerging infectious diseases and U.S. federal law, especially as
it affects the mission of public health agencies; and the importance of
state and local law in dealing with emerging infectious diseases.

Common themes included the challenge posed by emerging infectious diseases
as law at every level (international, national, and local) is involved and
law in various forms (treaties, constitutions, statutes, and regulations)
is affected; the need for legal reform at the international and U.S.
federal, state, and local levels; the challenges posed by a complex
jurisdictional environment (e.g., World Health Organization's relationship
to independent states and U.S. public health agencies' relationships to
state governments); in considering legal reform, the need to balance
competing policy objectives, such as the control of infectious diseases
versus the freedom of global trade and travel or protecting the community
versus privacy rights; the interdependence of legal reform efforts in that
local and national implementation of revised international rules will be
critical to any global strategy; the need to integrate the efforts of
lawyers and public health officials to effectively promote epidemiologic
principles and objectives; and the massive scope of the emerging diseases
threat stemming from not only its global reach but also the long list of
causes behind the emergence and reemergence of infectious diseases (e.g.,
political and medical complacency, international trade, global travel, war,
human behavior, environmental degradation, urbanization, poverty, and
inadequate public health infrastructures).

The International Health Law Committee program marks a first step in
raising awareness in the legal and public health communities of the many
and complex legal issues involved in addressing emerging infectious
diseases.

For copies of program presentations and other information, contact David P.
Fidler by e-mail at davidfidler@law.indiana.edu.

David P. Fidler
Indiana University School of Law
Bloomington, Indiana, USA
[page 365]
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