7th October, 2022
By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
Nigeria’s distinguished professor of law, Obijiofor Aginam, has been appointed to the Global Committee of Experts convened by the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He is to review the International Health Regulations, WHO’s regulatory framework for the prevention, detection and control of pandemic diseases that constitute public health emergency of international concern.
Aginam will work with 19 other global experts in the Review in accordance with the WHO Regulations for Expert Advisory Panels and Committees.
The Committee will provide its report to the WHO Director-General not later than mid-January 2023.
The sole purpose of the Review Committee is to provide technical recommendations to the Director-General on amendments proposed by WHO member states to the International Health Regulations as decided by the World Health Assembly, the highest policy making organ of the WHO.
The expert review committee that was convened on October 6 will hold face to face meetings in Geneva between now and January 2023.
Aginam of Carleton University, Canada has also been appointed to serve on the WHO Roster of Experts who could be called upon to advise the Director-General of WHO on when to declare a pandemic a public health emergency of international concern.
A holder of PhD in International Law and Global Health Governance from the University of British Columbia, Canada, Aginam had served as Deputy Director & Head of Governance for Global Health at the United Nations University-International Institute for Global Health in Kuala Lumpur. He is now a Principal Visiting Fellow of the institute.
He was a Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations University headquarters, Tokyo from 2007 to 2013.
He served as a Global Health Officer at the WHO headquarters in Geneva from 1999 to 2001, and was a fellow of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) of New York as well as serving on the expert advisory panels of FAO on food safety, trade and investment involving field missions to Bangladesh and Laos, and the United Nations Inter-agency Taskforce on Non-communicable Diseases (2014-2019).
He has been a visiting professor at the University for Peace, Costa Rica, and universities in Italy, South Africa, and Japan.
He is on the editorial board of Global Health Governance: The Scholarly Journal for the New Health Security Paradigm.
The author of Global Health Governance: International Law and Public Health in a Divided World, he has contributed authoritative essays to many global journals and books.
A native of Akulu, Isuofia, in Aguata LGA of Anambra State, Aginam is married with children.