On Syria, War, and Health: When Universality Trumps Specialty

The deployment of weapons of mass destruction, and particularly chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, looms large worldwide with profound population health ramifications, yet international humanitarian law is inadequately structured to address the complexity of these threats, and particularly the social determinants that allow them to sustain. This work articulates the precise role of international criminal law in promoting, protecting, and validating the inextricable linkage between health and human rights, challenging a status quo that has heralded trade and national security as the preeminent and arguably exclusive factors of international intervention.