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Today, non-communicable diseases ("NCDs") are widely recognized as a global public health crisis and a foreign policy priority. The international community was slow to identify and respond to the crisis of NCDs in the later part of the twentieth century. However, in 2011 the United Nations High Level Meeting on NCDs recognized NCDs as one of the greatest threats to health and development in the twenty-first century, and a major topic for the post-2015 development agenda. Notably, many experts, national governments, and global leaders have rallied for an inclusive, "whole-of-government" and "whole-of-society" approach, situating public-private partnerships ("PPPs") with some of the vectors of NCDs, in particular the food and beverage industries, as the necessary strategy to address the issue. Although PPPs in global health are not a new phenomenon, PPPs with the food and beverage industries require a greater level of scrutiny and caution. The same level of vigilance should be applied when considering partnerships with the sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) industry, as in the tobacco and firearms industries, which produce goods known to be antithetical to public health. We examine how major SSB companies, such as the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, have been viewed as legitimate actors and partners, despite employing coercive tactics similar to the tobacco industry. We question their assumed full participation and cooperation in global NCD initiatives and call for greater transparency in global NCD partnership development and policy dialogue, particularly in the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda.

Obesity is a global epidemic, exacting an enormous human and economic toll. In the absence of a comprehensive global governance strategy, states have increasingly employed a wide array of legal strategies targeting the drivers of obesity. This Article identifies recent global trends in obesity-related legislation and makes the normative case for an updated global governance strategy. National governments have responded to the epidemic both by strengthening traditional interventions and by developing novel legislative strategies. This response consists of nine important trends: (1) strengthened and tailored tax measures; (2) broadened use of counter-advertising and health campaigns; (3) expanded food labeling; (4) increased attention to the built environment; (5) expanded use of bundled school-based strategies; (6) imposed greater restrictions on advertising and marketing to children; (7) strengthened restrictions, standards, and bans on specific foods and food additives; (8) created more targeted screening and brief interventions; and (9) ensured creative use of integrated programs to promote sustainable agriculture, environment, and healthy food. Despite this response, there remains a need to create a centralized, publicly accessible database of interventions. In addition, the scale of the obesity epidemic combined with the global trend toward more comprehensive regulation may for the first time create political space and will for an international obesity strategy.

Obesity is a global epidemic, exacting an enormous human and economic toll. In the absence of a comprehensive global governance strategy, states have increasingly employed a wide array of legal strategies targeting the drivers of obesity. This Article identifies recent global trends in obesity-related legislation and makes the normative case for an updated global governance strategy. National governments have responded to the epidemic both by strengthening traditional interventions and by developing novel legislative strategies. This response consists of nine important trends: (1) strengthened and tailored tax measures; (2) broadened use of counter-advertising and health campaigns; (3) expanded food labeling; (4) increased attention to the built environment; (5) expanded use of bundled school-based strategies; (6) imposed greater restrictions on advertising and marketing to children; (7) strengthened restrictions, standards, and bans on specific foods and food additives; (8) created more targeted screening and brief interventions; and (9) ensured creative use of integrated programs to promote sustainable agriculture, environment, and healthy food. Despite this response, there remains a need to create a centralized, publicly accessible database of interventions. In addition, the scale of the obesity epidemic combined with the global trend toward more comprehensive regulation may for the first time create political space and will for an international obesity strategy.

Amid frenzied national responses to COVID-19, the world could soon reach a critical juncture to revisit and strengthen the International Health Regulations (IHR), the multilateral instrument that governs how 196 states and WHO collectively address the global spread of disease.1, 2 In many countries, IHR obligations that are vital to an effective pandemic response remain unfulfilled, and the instrument has been largely side-lined in the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest global health crisis in a century. It is time to reimagine the IHR as an instrument that will compel global solidarity and national action against the threat of emerging and re-emerging pathogens. We call on state parties to reform the IHR to improve supervision, international assistance, dispute resolution, and overall textual clarity.