European Integration in the Field of Human Health

Abstract

In a time where the European Union (EU) project is politically more contested than ever, integration in the field of health continues, not faltered by the current ‘constraining dissensus’. This paradoxical continuing development, has been explained by a ‘permissive dissensus’, where the neo-functional integration mechanism seems to be at work as it was before (Greer and Kurzer 2013; Haas 1958).

In the light of the steadily growing role of the EU in the field of human health what to make of its legal imprint? The books discussed in this review each take a closer look at the way the EU is involved in the protection and promotion of human health. The co-authored monograph by Hervey & McHale, a major rewriting of their 2004 book, asks how through EU law and regulation, the very foundations and our assumptions about health law as an objective in itself, have changed, and how this change affects who we are in the face of health problems; from patients to consumers – how EU law alters health systems into markets; and populations into (economic) risk-pools. The edited volume of Alemanno & Garde basically asks what currently is done, and in the future can be done through EU regulation and policy to make Europeans healthier. The edited volume of Van Asselt, Everson & Vos turns these questions around and asks how the science of health and environmental risks in trade are, or should be affecting the nature and the procedures of EU regulation. Last, the book edited by Greer & Kurzer maps European integration in the field of human health from a public health perspective. As a general theme these contributions give us an opportunity to view the EU from another perspective; a perspective where human health law and policy and its intrinsic and specific connections with science, risks, values and fundamental rights forms the central focal point instead of a side issue, and through this perspective it shows us a different view on the nature of the European legal order and its legitimacy problems.

Keywords: European Integration, Human Health, Risk Regulation