The Mission Statement of the EAHL is as follows:
The European Association of Health Law aims to strengthen the health and human rights interface throughout Europe, and to serve as an indispensable source of advice and guidance for the future of health law and policies in Europe.
The guiding principle of the EAHL is the achievement of academic excellence and the improvement of health law practice.
Its overarching purpose is to bring together health lawyers from around the Council of Europe to discuss and collaborate on issues of importance in the development of health law and policies.
The principal objectives of the Association are:
- To actively promote health law research, teaching and practice throughout Europe;
- To encourage and facilitate co-operation in these areas among health lawyers throughout Europe;
- To encourage and support the development of health law in European and international relations;
- To pro-actively engage in discussion on topical issues of health law and to assess and respond to new and emerging challenges for health law;
- To promote a greater awareness and understanding of health law nationally and in the European context.
The Association will achieve its objectives by:
- Providing opportunities and fora for discussions, academic and practical exchanges, expert communications and public engagement on contemporary issues in health law;
- Encouraging EAHL-sponsored research networks in specific fields of health law;
- Organising and supporting conferences, workshops, symposia and training courses;
- Facilitating events and networks to encourage young scholars in their work;
- Issuing opinions and giving advice on matters of common European interest;
- Promoting quality publications for a wide range of audiences with an interest in health law and health law-related issues;
- Advancing teaching and training in these areas;
- Providing a Health Law Coordination Function (i.e., with respect to publications, research, teaching programmes and courses, contacts and databases; perhaps best achieved via a web-based database).
The EAHL is registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, Amsterdam, NL, as a not for profit organisation.
EAHL governing bodies:
The constitution as well as the organisational structure of the EAHL were approved at the EAHL founding conference in 2008 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
At present, the EAHL consists of the following bodies:
- The General Assembly (the major organ of the EAHL).
- The Board of Directors
- Advisory Board
Since April 2023, the Board of Directors is composed of 7 members, as follows:
• Steven Lierman (elected 2021-2025 for a second term)
• Joaquín Cayón-De Las Cuevas (elected 2021-2025 for a second term)
• Annagrazia Altavilla (elected 2021-2025 for a second term)
• Athanasios Panagiotou (elected 2021-2025 for a second term)
• Iryna Senyuta (elected 2023-2027 for a second term)
• Magdalena Flatscher-Thöni (elected 2023–2027 for a for a first term)
• Santa Slokenberga (elected 2023–2027 for a first term)
Executive Committee consists of President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer.
Lala Jafarova (Azerbaijan) supports the Board with the Association’s administrative tasks.
The Board of Directors is assisted by
Since April 2023, the Advisory Board for 2023-2024 term is composed of:
- Andre Den Exter, Netherlands
- Brenda Daly, Ireland
- Claudia Seitz, Switzerland
- Emmanuelle Rial-Sebbag, France
- Maria Bach-Golecka Dobrochna, Poland
- Titti Mattsson, Sweden
Advisory Board members are expected to:
- Attend EAHL conferences
- Make suggestions for improvements of the running of the Association
- Make suggestions for activities/opportunities to be offered by the EAHL to its members
- Offer assistance with hosting EAHL Seminars/Conferences etc
- Offer solicited and unsolicited advice to the EAHL (Executive) Board.
National contact points act as a liaison between the EAHL and national lawyers dealing with health law subjects.
The task description of NCPs is the following:
- For the news section of the EAHL website: provision of information on developments of interest to the members of the Association (eg new legislative rules resp. advisory opinions concerning a health law topic, publications, jurisprudence etc.)
- Assistance to the Board in enquiries for information on a specific health law issue addressed through the EAHL web. Depending on the situation, the NCP answers the questions him/herself, refers the question to somebody who can answer the enquiry, resp. brings about the contact.
- Assistance in finding participants for EAHL interest groups resp. for European research projects resp. speakers for symposia and conferences.
- Active promotion of the EAHL in the contacts home country by distributing relevant EAHL information (eg. coming events, interest groups etc) eg. through the website of the national health law association (if any), resp. by other appropriate means of informing health lawyers/university health law institutes.
- Liaise with the national contact points from other countries.
The list of national contact points you can found HERE.
Audit Committee 2023-2024
- Volker Lipp, Göttingen
- Caroline Voithofer, Innsbruck
- Mike Schwebag, Luxembourg
Membership
Membership of the EAHL is open to health lawyers in Europe and beyond, and it includes several types such as individual. It was agreed already during the founding conference that there would be considerable value in a central database to identify members, their interests and affiliations, to highlight health law centres across Europe, to raise awareness of publications and on-going projects, and to share teaching resources and other materials. This database will be used towards multiple ends, including facilitating connections between members, establishing and maintaining networks, capacity building, creating knowledge repositories, for example, of laws, law reform measures and research projects, and as a means to learn from and consolidate experiences across Europe.
Network support
The EAHL is committed to encouraging EAHL-sponsored networks. To this end, members involved in an EAHL-sponsored network will receive specific support from the EAHL for their network. This will include:
- Identification and contact of potential collaborating partners
- Assistance in the formalisation of the network
- Assistance in the construction of an appropriate model for the network
- Establishment of EAHL-supported interest groups to bring interested parties together for further discussion and collaboration on subjects of mutual interest
- Advice and support in making funding applications and seeking sponsorship.
Three Working Groups were established at the Founding Conference, to drive the work and the contributions of the Association forward and to maximise its impact across a range of possible fields. Each group will report on its activities at the bi-annual conference. The three Working Groups are:
Working Group 1: Research and Networks
Working Group 2: Teaching and Training
Working Group 3: Institutions
*Please, contact us to get accurate information about working groups.