Although there is a large body of literature that deals with questions relevant to the global governance of health, the legal studies have proved slower in providing systematic approaches to interpreting and analyzing the global governance of health. The case of global governance of health offers a number of interesting insights that ought to advance legal as well as political debates. We begin by briefly outlining the scope and nature of the dual dimension of global governance of health (GHG), arguing that the main challenge for contemporary GHG is to reestablish within the health policy framework the linkage between health care interventions and the underlying socioeconomic context. The understanding of the relationships between health and development as confirmed in the Tallin Charter on Health and Wealth adopted by all WHO (World health organization) European Member States in 2008 is the underpinning of the shift towards more horizontal and inclusive approaches (strategies such those of “The new European policy for health – Health 2020: Vision, values, main directions and approaches” of the Who Europe – 2011 – named “a whole-of-society approach” and “a whole-of-government approach”). In the second part of the paper, we explore recent inputs into the GHG discourse from a wide spectrum of actors, ranging from the WHO to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). We suggest that in their varying hues, these actors have attempted to reintroduce the wider social concerns constitutive of a more integrated approach to health law, which would locate specific interventions within a broader project of socioeconomic transformations.

health law, global governance of health, vertical governance, horizontal governance, civil society organizations