On June 7 2017, the UNSW Law Initiative for Biolegalities, in cooperation with the UNSW School of Public Health and Community Medicine, held a workshop on Natural and Unnatural Threats: Pandemics – The Global Governance of Health and Biosecurity.

The event brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from law, public health, medicine, international relations and bioethics who gathered to analyse and discuss the local and global implications of viral outbreaks. Topics discussed ranged from global public health injustices & the Ebola crisis, the troubled status of the World Health Organisation, institutional preparedness regimes and policies, public awareness campaigns, potential new threats of bioterrorism triggered by dual-use research, to the function of international and medical regulations and law enforcement. The event also involved PLuS Alliance Fellows from both Arizona State University and UNSW.

The intention of this event was to open some new lines of dialogue and improve cross-disciplinary understanding of different approaches to, or questions about, the same phenomena. UNSW looks forward to growing collaboration in these directions in the future.