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Mapping the Scope and Opportunities for Public Health Law in Liberal Democracies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Roger S. Magnusson
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Extract

The two questions, “What is public health law?” and “How can law improve the public’s health?”, are perennial ones for public health law scholars. They are ideological questions because perceptions about the proper boundaries of law’s role will shape perceptions of what law can do, in an operational sense, to improve health outcomes. They are also theoretical questions, in the sense that, without closing down debate about the limits of public health law, these questions can be addressed by mapping the range of perspectives on how law might “go to work” for the public’s health. Finally, these are immensely practical questions. On our ability to understand the roles that law can play in public health improvement rests our capacity, as a society, to use law strategically as a policy tool.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , Winter 2007 , pp. 571 - 587
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2007

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