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The Normative Leadership of the World Health Organization : A quantitative analysis (report)

This report is part of a researchproject led by an interdisciplinary team at the Université de Montréal (Canada)with the support of research collaborators around the world. Considering thelack of evidence regarding the impact of WHO norms into domestic law, thisproject—and ultimately the report—aims to fill some of this gap by providing additionalempirical data. More specifically, this research project has three specificobjectives: 1) To assess how domestic law (legislation, regulation and caselaw) incorporates WHO norms (convention, regulation, policies, etc.) from botha quantitative and qualitative perspective; 2) To develop theoretical insightson the normative effectiveness of international organizations, focusingspecifically on the WHO and 3) To use the data collected to providerecommendations to policy-makers and the WHO in order to support thedevelopment of effective international normative strategies for global healthgovernance. The report specifically seeks to explain the WHO’s normativefootprint in domestic law by presenting a quantitative analysis of referencesto WHO norms across eight countries: Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, France,Israel, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United States. The report presentssome data collected during this project through graphical representations andrefines the analysis by contextualizing the results—highlighting each country’slegal, political, and historical characteristics, as well as its specifichealth-related issues. Additionally, the findings are enriched by theperspectives of several national experts. The research team has drawn sevenmajor conclusions from the data interpretation and, in doing so, formulated somekey recommendations to contribute to the normative leadership of the WHO.

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