Lawrence Oglethorpe Gostin (born October 19, 1949) is an American law professor who specializes in

public health law Public health law examines the authority of the government at various jurisdictional levels to improve public health, the health of the general population within societal limits and norms. Public health law focuses on the duties of the government ...

. He was a

Fulbright Fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

and is best known as the author of the

Model State Emergency Health Powers Act The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA) is a public health act originally drafted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to aid the United States' state legislatures in revising their public health laws to control epidemics ...

and as a significant contributor to journals on medicine and law.

Early life and education

Larry Gostin was born in New York City in 1949, the son of Joseph and Sylvia Gostin. He received a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

from the

State University of New York at Brockport State University of New York Brockport (also known as SUNY Brockport or Brockport State, and previously The College at Brockport) is a public university in Brockport, New York. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY). History ...

in 1971 and a J.D. from

Duke Law School Duke University School of Law (Duke Law School or Duke Law) is the law school of Duke University, a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. One of Duke's 10 schools and colleges, the School of Law is a constituent academic unit th ...

in 1974. He was an adjunct professor at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

from 1986 to 1994 and went on to be a professor of law at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

's Law Center and a professor of law and public health at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

's School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Career in health law

In the 1970's, Gostin relocated to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and joined the mental health charity

MIND The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

, where he helped establish its Legal Welfare and Rights Department in 1975. He served as the organization's legal director until 1983. During his time at MIND, he was instrumental in the organization's campaign regarding reform of mental health legislation. According to Jennifer Brown, Gostin's writings on "new legalism" – a regulatory philosophy which combined protection of mental health patients' civil rights with entitlement to proper mental health treatment – was a big influence on the

Mental Health Act 1983 The Mental Health Act 1983 (c.20) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It covers the reception, care and treatment of mentally disordered people, the management of their property and other related matters, forming part of the ment ...

. Gostin himself estimated that two thirds of the act were based on proposals from MIND or from his writings. As legal director of MIND, Gostin also oversaw the filing of many

test cases In software engineering, a test case is a specification of the inputs, execution conditions, testing procedure, and expected results that define a single test to be executed to achieve a particular software testing objective, such as to exercise ...

at the

European Commission of Human Rights The European Commission of Human Rights was a special body of the Council of Europe. From 1954 to the entry into force of Protocol 11 to the European Convention on Human Rights, individuals did not have direct access to the European Court of Hu ...

and

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...

"highlighting the absence of possibilities for a legal review of detention nder UK mental health legislationfor many." From January 1984 to 1985, Gostin was general secretary of the

National Council for Civil Liberties Liberty, formerly, and still formally, called the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), is an advocacy group and membership organisation based in the United Kingdom, which challenges unjust laws, protects civil liberties and promotes hu ...

in the United Kingdom. From 1986 to 1994, he was executive director of the

American Society for Law, Medicine, and Bioethics American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

. He worked on

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

's health plan, serving as chairman of the health information privacy and public health committees of the President's Task Force on Health Care Reform. His proposed

ignited a firestorm of controversy across the ideological spectrum, from

Phyllis Schlafly Phyllis Stewart Schlafly (; born Phyllis McAlpin Stewart; August 15, 1924 – September 5, 2016) was an American attorney, conservative activist, author, and anti-feminist spokesperson for the national conservative movement. She held paleocons ...

LAMBDA Lambda (}, ''lám(b)da'') is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiced alveolar lateral approximant . In the system of Greek numerals, lambda has a value of 30. Lambda is derived from the Phoenician Lamed . Lambda gave rise ...

, for being overly broad and ripe for abuse. He is also Professor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University and Director of the Center for Law & the Public's Health at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities—A Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is Adjunct Professor of Public Health (Faculty of Medical Sciences) and Research Fellow (Centre for Socio-Legal Studies) at Oxford University. Gostin chairs a World Health Organization project on the law and ethics of public health strategies for pandemic influenza and is leading a drafting team on developing a Model Public Health Law for the World Health Organization. In a January 25, 2020 interview with NPR, Gostin argued against travel restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus, stating, “The risk is extraordinarily low for people in the United States.” In an April 2021 interview with Vox, he described his previous belief about travel restrictions being bad as an "almost religious belief" with no evidence behind it, saying “I have now realized .that our belief about travel restrictions was just that — a belief. It was evidence-free”. He is the Linda D. and Timothy J. O'Neill Professor of Global Health Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, where he directs the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law."Faculty Profile: Lawrence Gostin"
O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University

Awards and honours

* 1994, the Chancellor of the State University of New York conferred an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree. * 2006, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Vice Chancellor awarded Cardiff University's (Wales) highest honor, an Honorary Fellow. * Elected lifetime Member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences. * 2006, the IOM awarded Gostin the Adam Yarmolinsky Medal. * He has received the Rosemary Delbridge Memorial Award from the National Consumer Council (U.K.) for the person "who has most influenced Parliament and government to act for the welfare of society." * Received the Key to Tohoko University (Japan) for distinguished contributions to human rights in mental health. * At the CDC Public Health Law Conference in 2006, he received the Public Health Law Association Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award "in recognition of a career devoted to using law to improve the public's health." * He is an elected fellow of the

Hastings Center The Hastings Center is an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute and think tank based in Garrison, New York. It was instrumental in establishing the field of bioethics and is among the most prestigious bioethics and health policy i ...

, an independent bioethics research institution.

Books

* Foundations of Global Health & Human Rights (co-editor; Oxford University Press, 2020) * Human Rights in Global Health: Rights-Based Governance for a Globalizing World (co-editor; Oxford University Press, 2018) * Principles of Mental Health Law and Policy (co-author; Oxford University Press, 2010) * Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint (University of California Press and Milbank Memorial Fund, 2nd ed. 2008) * Public Health Ethics: Theory, Policy and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2007) * The AIDS Pandemic: Complacency, Injustice, and Unfulfilled Expectations (University of North Carolina Press, 2004) * The Human Rights of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities: Different But Equal (Oxford University Press, 2003) * Public Health Law and Ethics: A Reader (University of California Press and Milbank Memorial Fund, 2002)

References

External links

Gostin's long form CV with a full bibliography of his published writings
O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University *
The Center for Law and the Public's Health site
(archived 4/22/2001 copy) {{DEFAULTSORT:Gostin, Lawrence O. 1949 births Living people American expatriates in England Duke University School of Law alumni Georgetown University Law Center faculty Harvard University faculty Hastings Center Fellows Johns Hopkins University faculty State University of New York at Brockport alumni Members of the National Academy of Medicine