A Covering-Law Model of Global Health Governance
Posted: 10 Nov 2014 Last revised: 14 Apr 2020
Date Written: November 10, 2014
Abstract
"until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively, are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils, [], nor, I think, will the human race. And, until this happens, the constitution we’ve been describing in theory will never be born to the fullest extent possible or see the light of the sun.
Plato, Republic 473 c-e
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above [] and the moral law within [].
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason
Global Health Governance (“GHG”) – viz. collaborative trans-national research and action for promoting health for all – turns on a clear and distinct understanding of “the science being qua being” notably with respect to the notion of sovereignty. Drawing on the endgame of a decade-long exercise in the socio-legal construction of GHG that involved protracted litigation of basic rights in the U.S. court system, this whitepaper constructs a model of cause and explanation (covering-law model) of GHG modeled on the Cartesian architectonic, with emendations, as appropriate: (A) res cogitans/thought; (B) res extensa/extension; (C) res infinitum/sovereignty. By standing the covering-law model up to the critical reflection and deliberation of the research community and the public-at-large, this whitepaper seeks to clarify the normative foundations of international relations (“IR”) and international law (“IL”) and hence disable the IR-responsible and IL-legitimate in the problematic of GHG.
Keywords: Metaphysics; Global Health; Governance; Positive Law; Natural Law; Sophistry; Game-theoretic Methodology; Logic; Analytic Geometry; Sovereingty
JEL Classification: K33; P16; O34; O38
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation