Gorik Ooms

[ 1 ] - Innovative Use of the Law to Address Complex Global Health Problems; Comment on “The Legal Strength of International Health Instruments - What It Brings to Global Health Governance?”

Addressing the increasingly globalised determinants of many important problems affecting human health is a complex task requiring collective action. We suggest that part of the solution to addressing intractable global health issues indeed lies with the role of new legal instruments in the form of globally binding treaties, as described in the recent article of Nikogosian and Kickbusch. However...

[ 2 ] - Thinking Out of the Box: A Green and Social Climate Fund; Comment on “Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames”

Solomon Benatar’s paper “Politics, Power, Poverty and Global Health: Systems and Frames” examines the inequitable state of global health challenging readers to extend the discourse on global health beyond conventional boundaries by addressing the interconnectedness of planetary life. Our response explores existing models of international cooperation, assessing how modifying them may achieve the...

[ 3 ] - From Almost Empty to Half Full? A Response to Recent Commentaries

[ 4 ] - Of Politicians and Technocrats, and Why Global Health Scholars Are Inevitably a Bit of Both: A Response to Recent Commentaries

[ 5 ] - Towards a Global Social Support System: A Response to the Recent Commentaries

[ 6 ] - Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?

While the right to health is increasingly referenced in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) discussions, its contribution to global health and development remains subject to considerable debate. This hypothesis explores the potential influence of the right to health on the formulation of health goals in 4 major SDG reports. We analyse these reports through a social constructivist lens which view...

[ 7 ] - A Global Social Support System: What the International Community Could Learn From the United States’ National Basketball Association’s Scheme for Redistribution of New Talent

If global trade were fair, it is argued, then international aid would be unnecessary and inequalities inherent to the economic system would be justifiable. Here, we argue that while global trade is unfair, in part because richer countries set the rules, we believe that additional interventions must go beyond trade regulation and short-term aid to redress inequalities among countries that will p...

[ 8 ] - Navigating Between Stealth Advocacy and Unconscious Dogmatism: The Challenge of Researching the Norms, Politics and Power of Global Health

Global health research is essentially a normative undertaking: we use it to propose policies that ought to be implemented. To arrive at a normative conclusion in a logical way requires at least one normative premise, one that cannot be derived from empirical evidence alone. But there is no widely accepted normative premise for global health, and the actors with the power to set policies may use...