The globalization of public health and the right to solidarity

Obijiofor Aginam examines the right to solidarity and the globalization of public health. In recent decades, the crisis of newly emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, exemplified by the outbreaks and often unavoidable transboundary spread of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, Hanta virus, West Nile virus, SARS, Zika, and the COVID-19 pandemic that ravaged societies across all regions, has strongly reinforced the age-old notion that pathogenic microbes do not respect the geo-political boundaries of sovereign states. Throughout history, pandemics serve as wake-up calls for nation-states, multilateral institutions, and civil society to address the “mutual vulnerability” of all people to disease. This chapter deploys the concept of “globalization of public health” to argue that protectionist isolationism, the realpolitik of policy constructs aimed at insulating one country or region from the “exotic” diseases of less developed regions of the world is anachronistic in an interdependent world. The right to solidarity, in alignment with existing normative approaches that protect and promote human health, holds a certain promise towards the “attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health” as codified in the Constitution of the World Health Organization. International law, with its bold claims to universal protection of human rights (including the right to health) and enhancement of human dignity, is indispensable in the task of reconstructing the damaged public health trust in the relations of nations, societies, and peoples across the world.