The Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, earlier known as the Institute on Law, Ethics and Medicine and subsequently as the Centre for Law and Ethics in Medicine, undertakes policy and regulatory research on health law at the national and international level. The Centre strives to provide information on, and analyse current policy responses to health issues, advocate for health law reform, health system reforms, and health policy implementation. The Centre through its unique position focuses on a multi-disciplinary approach of identifying issues pertaining to health law and engages itself in research, dialogue and negotiation that enables systematic reforms in the health sector.
Ongoing Projects
The Centre currently has two ongoing projects:
- Public Health Law and the Constitution: This project aims to evaluate the constitutional framework within which the duties, powers and limitations of the government on public health are debated and scrutinised by the courts. The project entails a survey of leading cases from the Supreme Court of India and the State High Courts on the constitutionality of public health regulations, programmes and policies in India, and the interaction of public health with fundamental rights, directive principles of state policy and the federal structure of the Constitution of India. The scope of examination includes public health themes such as access to medicines, availability and affordability of healthcare services, discrimination in access to healthcare facilities, compulsory vaccinations, digitisation and privacy concerns, nutrition support, control of harmful substances and prohibition of their advertisements of harmful substances, regulation of drugs and medical devices, regulation of professions, compulsory bonds, impact of emerging technologies, rare diseases and the extent of state responsibility. The project is supported by the Thakur Foundation. It began in 2022 and will culminate into a compendium of edited cases and materials including critical comments on issues of public health and the Indian constitution.
- Think Tank on Health Initiative: In 2018, NLSIU received support from a group of medical experts and practitioners to set up a Think Tank on Health at the University. The objective was to make NLS a hub of collaborative and critical research, teaching, policy intervention and advocacy on various rights based and other legal issues in the healthcare ecosystem. As a first step, an edited book was published by Thomson Reuters in 2022 on ‘Health Law and Ethics (Critical Reflections)’. Also, co-authored opinion pieces of NLS faculty and Think Tank Members have been published.
Other work
NLS is also working closely with IISC, Bengaluru and National Health Authority for discussions and deliberations on Digital Health Data Protection, Analytics and Emerging Technologies and other teams of scientists for a project on ultrasound technology. For more details, please contact Ms Nanditta Batra at .
Centre Director: Bhanu Tanwar
