Sydney Health Law is a centre in the University of Sydney Law School that is active in organising seminars and conferences on topics of relevance to health governance, law and ethics and in building links with academic, community and professional organisations in Australia and overseas.
Academic staff affiliated with the Centre teach in Sydney Law School's extensive offerings in health law, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
The centre aims to encourage, promote and support innovative and important scholarship in health law, policy and bioethics – through teaching, research, consultancy and advocacy in all areas of health law, including health policy and bioethics.
These objectives include work both within the University of Sydney, with other centres in Australia and overseas, with the legal profession more generally, and the wider community, both in Australia and internationally
The centre's activities include:
Transforming food governance: evidence-based policy for a healthier future. The Global Food Governance Conference returns in 2027 as a collaboration between Sydney Law School, The George Institute for Global Health, the Global Center for Legal Innovation on Food Environments at the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law (Georgetown University), and the Charles Perkins Centre, the University’s dedicated institute for easing the global burden of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and related conditions.
Located in the Charles Perkins Centre, the Food Governance node provides a platform for collaboration between lawyers, nutritionists, policy analysists, and health scientists. Our focus is on developing practical solutions to the problems of poor nutrition and diet-related disease, through submissions to government, developing grant applications, generating new multidisciplinary research, and more.
Running from 2019-2022, this ARC Discovery project aimed, to investigate the role of law, policy, and regulation in enabling local governments and communities to contribute to healthy, sustainable, and equitable food systems. Visit the strengthening local food systems governance website.
The 2024 Food Governance Conference was held on 14-16 February 2024. The conference explored the promotion of healthier diets via food policy and governance, Indigenous Peoples food system governance, equity and social justice in food systems, food security, and sustainability, and commercial determinants of health, and aims to create new opportunities for collaboration between researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working in all aspects of food governance.
In December 2021 the Food Governance Node at the Charles Perkins Centre (University of Sydney) hosted the Global Food Governance Conference, in collaboration with the George Institute for Global Health and the Global Center for Legal Innovation on Food Environments (Georgetown University Law Centre).
In conjunction with the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre, Sydney Law School hosted the second Food Governance Conference from 3-5 July 2019.
Sydney Health Law's interns for 2025:
Sydney Health Law's interns for 2024:
Sydney Health Law's interns for 2023:
Sydney Health Law recruited three Law students to explore the status of vaping regulation in Pacific Island Countries and Territories and options for regulating e-cigarettes. Their research project informed the Public Health Division of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the legislative draftsperson leading the further development of the Pacific Legislative Framework.
Sydney Health Law's interns for 2022:
Sydney Health Law's 2022 internship project is summarised here: Law student interns making a difference in the Pacific.
On 22 July 2026, Professor Lawrence Gostin, Distinguished University Professor at Georgetown University, delivered a keynote address examining the impact of the second Trump administration's policies on public health in the United States and globally. Professor Gostin was then joined by two eminent Australian public health experts, Professor Julie Leask AO and Professor Andrew Wilson AO for a panel discussion on the implications for Australia.
The event was co-hosted by Sydney Health Law, the United States Studies Centre, and the Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute (Sydney ID) at the University of Sydney.
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Sydney Health Law was fortunate to host Professor Kuei-Jung Ni, of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University Taiwan, in the first half of 2026. It was Professor Ni's third visit to Sydney Health Law in recent years.
Professor Ni was in Australia researching the regulation of AI medical devices, and for that research travelled to Canberra to interview representatives of the Therapeutic Goods Administration. He delivered a paper setting out his initial findings and reflections, including the role of the TGA in ensuring that AI systems are made intelligible and explainable to consumers.
Our thanks to Professor Ni, and to all who joined the conversation and supported his visit to Sydney Health Law.
Sydney Health Law is delighted to welcome our 2025 interns, who will be advising on food legislation in Pacific Island Countries and Territories, in collaboration with Public Health Division of the Pacific Community.
Sydney Health Law's Deputy Director has contributed to recent discussions about AHPRA's new guidelines for the cosmetic procedures industry.
Dr Christopher Rudge's article New rules for cosmetic injectables aim to make the industry safer. Will they work? was published in The Conversation on 6 June 2025. Dr Rudge was also interviewed by the Life Matters program on ABC Radio National on 9 June 2025.
Sydney Health Law congratulates Sydney Law School PhD candidate Berk Eker, who won the joint USyd-UTS Law School Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) heats on 29 May. Berk's PhD thesis is supervised by Associate Professor Belinda Reeve.
Sydney Health Law congratulates LLB (Hons) graduate Erika Blendell, whose health law Honours thesis explored the issue of liability in negligence for transmission of Human Papilloma Virus.
Erika's thesis was supervised by Professor Roger Magnusson.
Neil Francey holds an LLB from the University of Queensland and an LLM Hons from the University of Sydney. He practiced as a barrister in Sydney for 25 years spending much of his time on ground breaking tobacco litigation. He has also published internationally on various aspects relating to tobacco.
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