The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: an Innovation in the Form of International Organization
Abstract
As a partnership amongst governments, civil society, the private sector and communities, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the “Global Fund”) represents an innovation in the mechanisms for international health financing. This article examines the innovative features of the Global Fund, set in a context involving shifting practices in the modes of international cooperation and evolving attitudes concerning the appropriate nature and role of international organizations in meeting global challenges. By virtue of the Global Fund’s nature as a product of contemporary understandings concerning the purpose, process and content of development aid, this paper describes the novel legal arrangement that was necessary for the establishment of the Global Fund, one which differed significantly from that used for the international organizations established in earlier eras. While the identity of the Global Fund as a public/private partnership demanded an expansion of the traditionally state-centric conception of the international organization, this paper concludes by noting that this expansion is indicative of a general movement within international law.
Gülen Atay Newton
Gülen Atay Newton is Legal Counsel and Director of the Legal Services Unit at The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.