The goal of improving public health involves the use of different tools, with the law being one way to influence the activities of institutions and individuals. Of the regulatory mechanisms afforded by law to achieve this end, criminal law remains a perennial mechanism to delimit the scope of individual and group conduct. Utilising criminal law may promote or hinder public health goals, and its use raises a number of complex questions that merit exploration. This examination of the interface between criminal law and public health brings together international experts from a variety of disciplines, including law, criminology, public health, philosophy and health policy, in order to examine the theoretical and practical implications of using criminal law to improve public health.

Public health activity, and the state's public health responsibilities to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy, can only be achieved through different means of social coordination. This places law and regulation at the heart of public health. They are fundamental both to methods of achieving public health goals and to constraints that may be put on public health activity. As such, trainees, practitioners, and leaders in public health need to understand the breadth and nature of wide-ranging legal and regulatory approaches and the place of ethics in public health. Public Health Law, written by three leading scholars in the field, defines and examines this crucial area of study and practice. It advances an agenda whose scope extends far beyond that covered in traditional medical law and health care law texts. The authors provide an account of the scale of contemporary public health policy and practice and explain its philosophical depths and implications and its long legislative and regulatory history. They advance a definition of the field and explore how different legal approaches may serve and advance or constrain and delimit public health agendas. This ground-breaking book presents the field of public health ethics and law and goes on to examine the impact within the UK of private law, criminal law, public law, EU and international law, and 'softer' regulatory approaches. It is a primary point of reference for scholars, practitioners, and leaders working in public health, particularly those with an interest in law, policy, and ethics.

Public health activity, and the state's public health responsibilities to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy, can only be achieved through different means of social coordination. This places law and regulation at the heart of public health. They are fundamental both to methods of achieving public health goals and to constraints that may be put on public health activity. As such, trainees, practitioners, and leaders in public health need to understand the breadth and nature of wide-ranging legal and regulatory approaches and the place of ethics in public health. Public Health Law, written by three leading scholars in the field, defines and examines this crucial area of study and practice. It advances an agenda whose scope extends far beyond that covered in traditional medical law and health care law texts. The authors provide an account of the scale of contemporary public health policy and practice and explain its philosophical depths and implications and its long legislative and regulatory history. They advance a definition of the field and explore how different legal approaches may serve and advance or constrain and delimit public health agendas. This ground-breaking book presents the field of public health ethics and law and goes on to examine the impact within the UK of private law, criminal law, public law, EU and international law, and 'softer' regulatory approaches. It is a primary point of reference for scholars, practitioners, and leaders working in public health, particularly those with an interest in law, policy, and ethics.

The right to bodily integrity has become a notable controversial issue within moral, political and legal discourse and this right is regarded as one of the most precious rights that persons have, alongside the right to life. Recent scholarly debate has focused attention on the content, scope and force of this right and has lead to the recognition that a better understanding of the nature of this right will contribute to determining whether and why a multitude of clinical and research activities in medical practice should be seen as permissible or impermissible. The essays selected for this volume examine topics such as pregnancy and reproduction, altering children's bodies, transplantation, controversial modifications and surgeries, and experimentation and dead bodies. This is the first collection of scholarly research articles to provide a comprehensive overview of the ethical and legal aspects of the right to bodily integrity and its implications in theory and practice.

Medicine and health care generate many bioethical problems and dilemmas that are of great academic, professional and public interest. This comprehensive resource is designed as a succinct yet authoritative text and reference for clinicians, bioethicists, and advanced students seeking a better understanding of ethics problems in the clinical setting. Each chapter illustrates an ethical problem that might be encountered in everyday practice; defines the concepts at issue; examines their implications from the perspectives of ethics, law and policy; and then provides a practical resolution. There are 10 key sections presenting the most vital topics and clinically relevant areas of modern bioethics. International, interdisciplinary authorship and cross-cultural orientation ensure suitability for a worldwide audience. This book will assist all clinicians in making well-reasoned and defensible decisions by developing their awareness of ethical considerations and teaching the analytical skills to deal with them effectively.

Emergencies are extreme events which threaten to cause massive disruption to society and negatively affect the physical and psychological well-being of its members. They raise important practical and theoretical questions about how we should treat each other in times of 'crisis'. The articles selected for this volume focus on the nature and significance of emergencies; ethical issues in emergency public policy and law; war, terrorism and supreme emergencies; and public health and humanitarian emergencies. Together they demonstrate the normative implications of emergencies and provide multi-disciplinary perspectives on the ethics of emergency response.

The essays selected for this volume focus on issues that arise when attempting to design, review and undertake research involving human participants who are experiencing a private or public emergency. The main themes discussed by the essays are: the distinctive and significant ethical questions as to how research participants can be treated during emergency settings; the ethical challenges raised by emergencies for researchers undertaking research and its effects on the nature of research pursued; and procedural obstacles raised by emergencies which can affect the quality of good research ethics review. The volume is unique in that it is the first collection to exclusively deal with all of the central ethical aspects of conducting human subject research in the context of emergency.