The Global Political Economy of Global Health Law: The Case of Antimicrobial Resistance

This thesis critically evaluates Lawrence O. Gostin's influential vision of global health law (hereafter, "global health law") against his stated objectives to resolve global health challenges and attain global health with justice. Hitherto, no critical analysis around the global political economy of global health law has been undertaken. This research applies neo-Gramscian ideas related to globalisation, legal relations, and the philosophy of praxis to critically analyse the global political economy of global health law. The analysis situates global health law in the processes of globalisation and juridification as well as increasingly pluralised and privatised legal relations, which I show to be associated with a broader shift towards neoliberal transnational hegemony. The thesis asks whether, and if so how, that undermines the objectives of global health law. As an ever more pressing global health challenge that threatens to imperil modern medicine and deepen already vast global health injustice, antimicrobial resistance serves (AMR) as a pertinent case study to explore the findings of this critical analysis.

In Chapter One, I introduce this research. In Chapter Two, I sketch the object of critical analysis in terms of a normative foundation and a legal framework. In Chapter Three, I critically analyse how the inclusion and articulation of the concepts in the normative foundation overlook neoliberal transnational social forces that, through globalisation and juridification, are legitimised in global health law. In Chapter Four, I critically analyse the legal framework; I argue that it is linked to the pluralisation and privatisation of law also associated with neoliberal transnational social forces. In Chapter Five, I explore these findings through a case study of the global health law approach to AMR, to evaluate the impact of the shift towards neoliberal transnational hegemony on the stated objectives. In Chapter Six, I conclude this research.