Global Health Challenges and the Role of Law: the 2012 National Health Law Conference: May 4 & 5, 2012; Metropolitan Hotel; Toronto. For the final program and registration, go to: http://nhlc2012.ca/.

This international conference will bring together leading scholars, policy-makers, lawyers, physicians and other health care professionals to explore how law can address global health challenges and make real change. The conference includes a keynote panel debate entitled: “Can Law Meet Global Health Challenges?  Perspectives from Medicine and Politics” with Abdallah S. Daar, Senior Scientist, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto; Theodore Marmor, Health Care Policy, Politics and Law Expert, Yale University; Michael Ignatieff, Former Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada & Senior Fellow of Massey College, University of Toronto; and James Orbinski, Chair of Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and former President of the International Council of Médecins Sans Frontières.

The conference will also feature a Keynote Public Lecture: “Creaky Policies in Nanotime: How will Health Care Systems Cope with Global Age” with James Morone from Brown University. Other panel presentations focus on the role of law in the context of access to medicines and the control of chronic diseases, pharmaceutical policy, medical tourism, health and human rights, and health and vulnerability. Panel speakers include: Mary Anne Bobinski, William Bogart, Oscar Cabrera, Timothy Caulfield, I. Glenn Cohen, Rebecca Cook, Jocelyn Downie, Colleen Flood, Richard Gold, Lawrence Gostin, Aeyal Gross, Trudo Lemmens, Ruth Lopert, Constance Macintosh, Erin Nelson, Mariana Motta Prado, and Sheila Wildeman.

For Ontario lawyers, this program can be applied towards the 9 Substantive Hours of annual Continuing Professional Development (CPD) required by the Law Society of Upper Canada. The program may also be applicable towards up to 15 CPD hours for other jurisdictions within Canada and the U.S. Practitioners from these jurisdictions should confirm the applicability with their local law societies.

Trudo Lemmens is Associate Professor at the Faculties of Law and Medicine of the University of Toronto, and a member of the Joint Centre for Bioethics and the Centre for Ethics.