Commissioners

Co-Chairs

Lawrence Gostin, an internationally acclaimed scholar, is University Professor, Georgetown University’s highest academic rank conferred by the University President. Prof. Gostin directs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and was the Founding O’Neill Chair in Global Health Law. He served as Associate Dean for Research at Georgetown Law from 2004 to 2008. He is Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University, Professor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University, and Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. In 2016, President Obama appointed Prof Gostin to a 5-year term on the National Cancer Advisor Board. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Prof. Gostin is a Member of the National Academy of Medicine and serves on the Academy’s Global Health Board. The National Academy and American Public Health Association both awarded Gostin their Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award. His book Global Health Law (Harvard University Press) is translated into Chinese and Spanish. The National Consumer Council (United Kingdom) bestowed Prof. Gostin with the Rosemary Delbridge Memorial Award for the person “who has most influenced Parliament and government to act for the welfare of society.”

John Monahan, is the Senior Advisor for Global Health to Georgetown University President John J DeGioia; Senior Fellow, McCourt School of Public Policy; and Senior Scholar, O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. Most recently, he has served as the Special Advisor for Global Health Partnerships at the US Department of State (2010-2014) as well as Counselor to the Secretary and Director of Global Health Affairs at the US Department of Health and Human Services (2009-2010). Monahan served as the founding Executive Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and as a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law School (2007-2008). He was Senior Fellow at the Annie E. Casey Foundation (2000-2006); Non-Resident Senior Fellow atthe Brookings Institution (2001-2008); Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Children and Families (1997-1999) and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs (1993-1996) at US Department of Health and Human Services; Counsel to Senator David Pryor (1990-1991); Investigatorfor the US Senate Special Committee on Aging (1989); Clerk for US District Court Judge John F. Grady (1988); and Associate with Hopkins and Sutter (1987). Monahan served on the Obama-Biden and Clinton-Gore transition teams, and he has worked on numerous campaigns.

Ala Alwan, is the Minister for Health and Environment in Iraq. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Alwan was visiting Professor of Global Health and Principal Investigator of the Disease Control Priorities project at the University of Washington, Seattle. He was the WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean from1 February 2012 to 2017, Assistant Director-General for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health from February 2008 to February 2012. Dr Alwan graduated in Medicine from the University of Alexandria. He practiced medicine in Scotland and obtained his postgraduate training and qualifications in the United Kingdom. Following his return to Iraq, his home country, he held several positions in clinical and academic medicine and public health. He was Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Mustansiriya University, Baghdad.

In 1992, he joined WHO as Regional Adviser for Noncommunicable Diseases in the Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean. He then served as WHO Representative in Oman, and Director, Division of Health Systems Development in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. In 1998, Dr Alwan was reassigned to WHO headquarters as Director for Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention and then Director of the Department of Noncommunicable Diseases Management. In 2001, he became WHO Representative in Jordan. From 2003 to 2005, he was Minister of Education and Minister of Health in the Government of Iraq. From 2005 to January 2008, he was Representative of the Director-General and Assistant Director-General for Health Action in Crises.

Agnes Binagwaho, is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity, an initiative of Partners In Health focused on changing health care is delivered around the world by training global health professionals who strive to deliver more equitable, quality health services for all. She is a Rwandan pediatrician who completed her MD at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and her MA in Pediatrics at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale. She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science from Dartmouth College and earned a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Rwanda College of Business and Economics.

She worked 20 years in the public health sector in Rwanda. From 1996-2016, she served the Rwandan Health Sector in high-level government positions, first as the Executive Secretary of Rwanda’s National AIDS Control Commission, then as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, and 5 years as Minister of Health. She is a Senior Advisor to the Director General of the World Health Organization. She is Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. Since 2016 she is a member of the American National Academy of medicine and since 2017 a fellow of he African Academy of Sciences. She has published more than 160 peer-reviewed articles.

Gian Luca Burci, was named Adjunct Professor at the Graduate Institute of Geneva in 2012. He previously served in the Legal Office of the World Health Organization since 1998 and was its Legal Counsel from April 2005 until his retirement in February 2016. Professor Burci previously served as Legal Officer at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna in 1988-1989 and in the Office of the Legal Counsel of the United Nations in New York from 1989 to 1998. At the Graduate Institute he teaches global health law and the law and practice of international organizations. He is also the director of the joint LLM in Global Health Law and International Institutions program in partnership with Georgetown University. Among other professional achievements, he was closely involved in the negotiation and implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the revision and implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005), WHO’s response to the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak and WHO reform. Prof. Burci holds a post graduate degree in law from the Università degli Studi di Genova, Italy. His areas of expertise are public international law, the law of international organisations as well as global health governance and law. Prof. Burci is the co-author of the leading English book on WHO, editor of the first research collection on global health law, co-editor of the first research handbook on the same topic and author of numerous articles and book chapters on the law and practice of international organizations, international immunities as well as global health law and governance.

Luisa Cabal, is the Special Adviser for Human Rights and Gender at UNAIDS since 2015. Until 2014, she oversaw the Center for Reproductive Rights; legal and advocacy efforts in the United States and globally as the Vice President of Programs, where she worked for over 15 years. She led human rights fact-finding reporting, litigated landmark cases and oversaw advocacy strategies that advanced legal and policy protections at global, regional and national levels for sexual and reproductive rights. She has developed human rights training and fellowship programs that were critical in supporting young women leaders in the reproductive rights field and co-founded the first network of Latin American law professors (RED ALAS) working to integrate gender and sexuality into law school curricula.

In 2014 she was a Fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. From 2011 through 2014 she was a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia University School of Law. She has served as co-chair of the World Health Organization’s Reproductive Health Department’s Gender Advisory Panel; as a member of the International Federation of OB/GYN’s (FIGO) Sexual and Reproductive Rights Committee; and as a member of the scientific advisory panel of the University of California’s Global Health Institute. Ms. Cabal graduated from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. She received her Master of Laws from Columbia University School of Law.

Katherine DeLand, is an experienced, senior level professional with a cross-cutting background in law, public health, diplomacy, governance and biochemistry and over 20 years as a professional in international organizations, nonprofit organizations, private sector and academia in high- and low-income countries. She founded DeLand Associates, a niche firm, to fill the gap in the provision of consulting, advising and strategic services in international law, health and public policy.

From 2014-2016, she was the chief of staff of the World Health Organization’s Ebola response. She worked closely with the governments of Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone, the WHO offices in those nations as well as the United Nations Mission on Emergency Ebola Response and numerous other agencies to support the efforts to end the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. During this time, she also was also seconded to the Office of the Director General as part of the team that developed the approach to WHO’s new health emergencies capacities. Previously, Ms DeLand was senior advisor to the Head of the Convention Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Most recently, DeLand Associates provided expertise and strategic support to developing the joint WHO-World Bank Group initiative, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board.

When geographically possible, Ms DeLand lectures on global heath governance at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California. Ms. DeLand is also a Senior Fellow at the Global Health Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. A member of the California bar, Ms DeLand received a B.A. from Reed College and an M.P.H. and J.D. from UCLA.

Tim Evans, is the Senior Director for the Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice at the World Bank Group. Dr. Evans has been active in the international health arena for more than 20 years.

Before joining the World Bank he was the Dean of the James P. Grant School of Public Health of BRAC University in Bangladesh. Previously he served as Assistant Director General at the World Health Organization, heading the Evidence, Information, Research and Policy Clusters, where he oversaw the production of the annual World Health Report. Dr. Evans has been a leader in advancing global health equity and health systems performance throughout his career, notably through his work with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health and with his contributions to the development of innovative partnerships, including the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunization, INDEPTH and Health Metrics networks, the Global Health Workforce Alliance and the World Alliance for Patient Safety.

Dr. Evans earned his DPhil in agricultural economics at Oxford, and pursued medical and postgraduate studies at McMaster and Harvard Universities.

Eric Goosby, serves as the United Nations Special Envoy on Tuberculosis (TB). He also serves as a Professor of Medicine and the Director of the Institute for Global Health Delivery and Diplomacy in Global Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Special Envoy Goosby has over 30 years of experience with Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS as a clinician, researcher, and policy maker. After receiving his MD from UCSF, he spent his early years treating patients at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH). When AIDS first emerged, he was an intern and as more and more patients presented with HIV, he became particularly interested in HIV-associated TB and sought mentoring from leaders in tuberculosis research. During this period, he conducted clinical research on the diagnosis and treatment of opportunistic infections, the development of antiretroviral agents, and effectiveness of TB diagnostics. He assumed several leadership positions within SFGH, including Associate Medical Director of the HIV Clinic and attending physician of the TB clinic-the largest in the U.S.-where he set up early DOTS programs, protocols for MDR-TB, and was himself infected with TB in 1985.

In 2009, Special Envoy Goosby returned to government service and was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as the Ambassador-at-Large and United States Global AIDS Coordinator, where he led all U.S. Government international HIV/AIDS efforts. In this role, he oversaw implementation of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest public health program in history, and served as the U.S. Board Member to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Under his tenure, PEPFAR expanded its scope to more aggressively address TB prevention, diagnosis and treatment as part of HIV treatment and care, as well as to support coordination of HIV and TB programs, the development and use of molecular TB diagnostics and overall integration of HIV and TB into primary health care.

In December 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asked Special Envoy Goosby to serve as the founding Director of the Office of Global Health Diplomacy at the U.S. Department of State in addition to his role as the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. The office guides diplomatic efforts to advance the United States’ global health agenda to improve and save lives and foster sustainability in partner countries. He stepped down from this role in October 2013, when he again returned to UCSF to start an institute for Global Health Delivery and Diplomacy in order to apply scientific methods to the design and implementation of local health systems.

Special Envoy Goosby has longstanding working relationships with leading bilateral and multilateral organizations, including: UNAIDS, UNICEF, UNFPA, the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, and the World Health Organization. He also has developed strong relationships with heads of state, world leaders, and philanthropists, community and civil society organisations. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and newspapers and has contributed to several books. He is a tireless advocate for patients, and in addition to his leadership roles, continues his clinical practice in the HIV clinic and the in-patient AIDS ward at San Francisco General Hospital.

Sara Hossain, is a barrister and has practiced in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, mainly in the areas of constitutional, public interest and family law, since 1992. She is a partner at the law firm of Dr. Kamal Hossain and Associates, and is currently serving pro bono as the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust. She is a member of, among others, Ain o SalishKendra (ASK), a national human rights organization, the Madaripur LegalAid Association (MLAA), the Human Rights Committee of the InternationalLaw Association (ILA), the Advisory Committee of the Women’s International Coalition on Gender Justice (WICG); and a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ). Sara earlier ran the South Asia Programme at INTERIGHTS from 1997 to 2003, and was a foundingboard member of the South Asia Women’s Fund (SAWF).

Howard Koh, is Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership and Director of the Leading Change Studio at the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health. In these roles, he advances leadership education and training at the School of Public Health as well as with the Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard Business School and across Harvard University.

From 2009-2014, Dr. Koh served as the 14^th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), after being nominated by President Barack Obama and being confirmed by the U.S. Senate. During that time he oversaw 12 core public health offices, including the Office of the Surgeon General and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, 10 Regional Health Offices across the nation, and 10 Presidential and Secretarial advisory committees. He also served as senior public health advisor to the Secretary. During his tenure, he promoted the disease prevention and public health dimensions of the Affordable Care Act, advanced outreach to enroll underserved and minority populations into health insurance coverage and was the primary architect of landmark HHS strategic plans for tobacco control, health disparities and chronic hepatitis. He also led interdisciplinary implementation of Healthy People 2020 and the National HIV/AIDS Strategy as well as initiatives in a multitude of other areas, such as nutrition and physical activity (including HHS activities for Let’s Move!), cancer control, adult immunization, environmental health and climate change, women’s health, adolescent health, Asian American and Pacific Islander health, behavioral health, health literacy, multiple chronic conditions, organ donation and epilepsy.

Gorik Ooms, is a human rights lawyer and a global health scholar, Professor of Global Health Law & Governance at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Adjunct Professor at the Law Faculty of Georgetown University, and Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of Ghent University. Between 1990 and 2008, he worked with Médecins Sans Frontières Belgium in different positions, and as Executive Director from August 2004 until June 2008. He is one of the co-chairs of the Lancet Commission on a synergistic approach to universal health coverage, health security, and health promotion.

Peter Piot, is the Director of the School and a Professor of Global Health. He is the Chair of the MRC Global Health Group and a member of the MRC Strategy Board. He is a member of the Board of the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund in Tokyo and of the Oxford Martin Commission on Future Generations. Previously he was President of the InternatioanlAIDS Society and Chair of the King Baudouin Foundation and Chair if theEuropean Froum for Forward Looking Activities.

In 2009-2010 he was the Director of the Institute for Global Health at Imperial College, London. He was the founding Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1995 until2008, and was an Associate Director of the Global Programme on AIDS of WHO. Under his leadership UNAIDS became the chief advocate for worldwideaction against AIDS, also spear heading UN reform by bringing together 10 UN system organizations.

Mirta Roses Periago, served two terms as the Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Regional Office of the World Health Organization for the Americas (2003-2013) after being Assistant Director (1995-2003) and completed 29 years as WHO staff. Currently serving in several Boards and WHO Expert committees. She received her medical degree from the National University of Cordoba, Argentina, in 1969 and specialized in public health, epidemiology, clinical medicine and infectious diseases in her graduate studies at universities in Brazil and Argentina. Dr. Roses has shown unwavering commitment to achieving equity in the delivery of health care towards Health for All and continues to champion the cause of marginalized populations.

Rodrigo Uprimny, is a Colombian lawyer who holds a Ph.D. in Political Economy from the University of Amiens Picardie, a DSU (Master’s Degree) in Sociology of Law from the University of Paris II, and a DEA (Master’s Degree) in Social Economy of Development from the University of Paris I (IEDES). He is currently the director of the Center for the Study of Law, Justice, and Society (Dejusticia), and a professor of constitutional law, human rights, and theory of the state at the National University of Colombia. He was an auxiliary magistrate of the Constitutional Court and is a member of the UN Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. He is the author of numerous articles on human rights, constitutional law, tensions between law and economics, drug trafficking, and the courts.

Alicia Ely Yamin, leads the Global Health and Rights Project, which is a collaboration of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics (PFC) at Harvard Law School and the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator (GHELI) at Harvard University. Yamin is also an Adjunct Lecturer on Global Health and Population at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Additionally, Yamin is a founding Global Fellow of the Centre on Law and Social Transformation in Bergen, Norway, where she teaches PhD courses.

In 2016, the UN Secretary General appointed Yamin as one of ten international experts to the Independent Accountability Panel for the Global Strategy on Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health in the Sustainable Development Goals. She was re-appointed in 2018.

Known globally for her pioneering scholarship and advocacy in relation to economic and social rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the right to health, Yamin has served on multiple UN and WHO task forces/committees addressing issues at the intersection of human rights, global health and development agendas. She regularly advises advocates, submits amicus curiae briefs and provides expert testimony to tribunals and legislative bodies around the globe relating to the application of international and constitutional law to health issues.

Yamin is on the Board of Directors of Women in Global Health, and chairs the advisory council of the Health Law Institute, which promote women’s leadership and health workers’ rights in global health, respectively.

Commissioners: The Lancet-O’Neill Commission on Global Health and the Law

Co-Chairs

Commissioners