‘Border Country’: health law in a devolved UK
How are we to understand and research health law under devolution in the UK? Building on work in law and geography, we argue that the figure of the border is key to the production and implementation of devolved health law and the variety of forms that this takes. The utility of border thinking in this context is shown through a review of thematic areas, including infectious disease control, access to health care, and abortion, each instantiating a distinct bordering process. In each, we consider recent developments in policy and legislation, framed with reference to constitutional change, and the politics of devolution in the UK. Taking Wales as an exemplary site, we argue that health law produces borders in traditional and non-traditional places. It creates and blurs territories. It is equally constituted by pluralistic bordering practices. On the basis of this theoretically informed review, we conclude by proposing a cross-disciplinary legal, ethical, and socio-legal research agenda for future research.
Funding
Welsh Government Sêr Cymru—Tackling Covid-19 award (no grant number)
History
Author affiliation
College of Social Sci Arts and Humanities/Leicester Law SchoolVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Published in
Medical Law ReviewPublisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)issn
0967-0742eissn
1464-3790Copyright date
2024Available date
2024-04-17Publisher DOI
Language
enPublisher version
Deposited by
Miss Abbie HamptonDeposit date
2024-04-15Rights Retention Statement
- No