International Legal Instruments on Refugees in Africa

International Legal Instruments and Mechanisms in Japan

Adopting New International Health Instruments – What Can We Learn From the FCTC?; Comment on “The Legal Strength of International Health Instruments - What It Brings to Global Health Governance?”

This Commentary forms a response to Nikogosian’s and Kickbusch’s forward-looking perspective about the legal strength of international health instruments. Building on their arguments, in this commentary we consider what we can learn from the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for the adoption of new legal international health instruments.

The Legal Strength of International Health Instruments - What It Brings to Global Health Governance?

Public health instruments have been under constant development and renewal for decades. International legal instruments, with their binding character and strength, have a special place in this development. The start of the 21st century saw, in particular, the birth of the first World Health Organization (WHO)-era health treaties – the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) and i...

Human Rights Treaties Are an Important Part of the “International Health Instrumentariam”; Comment on “The Legal Strength of International Health Instruments - What It Brings to Global Health Governance?”

In their commentary, Haik Nikogosian and Ilona Kickbusch argue for the necessity of new binding international legal instruments for health to address complex health determinants and offer a cogent analysis of the implications of such treaties for future global health governance. Yet in doing so they pay no attention to the existing instrumentarium of international legally binding treaties relev...

Refugees from Africa

The recent relief action carried out by the organization Cap Anamur in the Mediterranean Sea has met considerable response in the German media. It did not only result in a debate on the treatment of refugees from Africa and on the EU asylum policy but also on the situation of the refugees’ region of origin. The point of departure in many media reports is to ask whether it would be better to und...