One Health: A New Intersectoral Approach and Its Legal Implications for Global Health Governance

One Health is a global, intersectoral approach focused on the protection of animal, environmental and human health through a collaborative international system. This article is centred on the legal analysis of One Health as a particularly useful approach to face human health and environmental protection in a unified logic, as also proved by the growing interests of relevant international organizations on this issue. From a legal perspective, the One Health approach may find useful integration with the already existing regimes of international law comprising environmental, health and food law. In particular, One Health may increase legal coherence for an integrated approach for global health governance, with a view to determine the contribution of States to prevent, detect and respond to health threats arising from the linkages between humans, animals, plants, and ecosystems. This implies the development of normative measures and regulative mechanisms to consider the coordination and collaboration between States, international organizations, and national scientific authorities to enact measures for disease prevention, preparedness, and response to future epidemic and pandemic diseases that may occur worldwide.