One Health’s Influence on Reimagining Public Health Law for the Twenty-First Century and Beyond
from Part III - One Health and Future Legal Structures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 September 2025
In this chapter we argue that One Health approaches indicate the need for a re-conceptualisation of public health law. From a regulatory perspective, to address public health effectively we need to attend to our interdependencies with each other, with other animals, and with the environment. This chapter argues that a failure to recognise the interdependence between humans and nature unnecessarily limits the scope of public health law, as it restricts the regulatory interventions and actors available to achieve desired public health outcomes. One Health offers an opportunity to broaden our understanding of what it means to regulate public health in a non-anthropocentric manner. It also allows us to acknowledge that non-state actors that advance animal and environmental health via standard-setting, gathering information, and influencing behaviour can mitigate risks to public health. A core function of public health is prevention and re-conceptualising the scope and actors involved in public health law to encompass the more holistic approach suggested by One Health that is critical to its continued evolution as the twenty-first century progresses.
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