Allyn Taylor, Visiting Professor

Professor Allyn Taylor, J.D., LL.M, J.S.D., joined Georgetown University Law Center as a Visiting Professor of Law in 2007 and is a faculty member of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. Between 2002 and 2010 she was also an adjunct professor of international relations at the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

In the early 1990s Professor Taylor initiated the idea of a global treaty on tobacco with her colleague, the late Professor Ruth Roemer of the UCLA School of Public Health. Professor Taylor’s idea of a framework convention on tobacco control, which she developed as part of her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University School of Law, became the basis of the World Health Organization's first treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Subsequently, Dr. Taylor became the senior legal adviser on the staff at the World Health Organization (WHO) for the negotiation and the adoption of the FCTC.

Dr. Taylor has been legal consultant to The World Bank, WHO, the Organization of American States, the Pan American Health Organization, the Overseas Development Council, the Framework Convention Alliance, the National Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, Realizing Rights: The Equitable Globalization Initiative and the International Union Against Cancer. Since 2008 she has worked as a senior legal adviser with the WHO Human Resources for Health Division for the negotiation and implementation of the 2010 WHO Code of Practice on International Recruitment of Health Personnel. In March 2009, she was appointed the Board of the International Union Against Cancer’s Global Access to Pain Relief Initiative and represented the UICC at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs. Dr. Taylor also serves on the International Advisory Committee for the International Center for Human Rights and Drug Policy in London and advises the WHO Department on Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies on international legal issues related to access to pain medication.

Dr. Taylor holds a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) School of Law and a masters and a doctorate in international law from Columbia University School of Law where she was a Ford Foundation Fellow in public international law. She has written extensively on global health law and policy concerns, including global health governance, global tobacco control, the International Health Regulations, global access to pain medication, women’s health, biotechnology, health and human rights, international health security, health systems and health worker recruitment, and communicable disease control. Professor Taylor regularly lectures in international courses on global health governance, including courses by Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Graduate Institute, Geneva, and a WHO/O’Neill/University of Capetown/University Geneva course on the International Health Regulations in Annecy, France.

Courses Taught:  Global Health Law & Policy; Germs, Global health & Governance Seminar