Holdenberh T. Legal status of the World Health Organization

The thesis is devoted to the issue of the legal nature of the World Health Organization. The main stages of the formation and development of the World Health Organization as the institutional basis of the world health system are highlighted. The legal bases of activity and peculiarities of membership in the World Health Organization are analyzed. The content and peculiarities of the international legal personality of the Organization are determined. Specific features of law-making activity are established and analysis of the internal-organizational and external-organizational mechanisms of the World Health Organization has carried out. It is highlighted that the World Health Organization acts as the main coordinating body in the field of health and works closely with States, with international intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. The main stages and directions of cooperation between Ukraine and the World Health Organization are identified. The evolution of the development of international legal relations in the field of healthcare since ancient times to the present has been revealed. It is established that the institutional structure of the world health system includes numerous international organizations and bodies aimed at ensuring the highest possible level of health for all people. Such organizations operate at both universal and regional levels. It is found that the World Health Organization's place in the institutional health care system is most fully reveal through its analysis of the functions it performs. Having analyzed the doctrine of international law and practice of the Organization, its main functions include: management, lawmaking, research, information, the function of providing humanitarian, medical and other assistance. On the basis of doctrinal analysis of three types of legal acts defining the boundaries of the activities of international organizations (constituent acts, acts adopted on the basis of constituent documents, and acts specified in the constituent documents), the legal bases of the activities of the World Health Organization are analyzed. The main areas of cooperation between Ukraine and the World Health Organization include: restoration and further development of health care facilities and training of relevant personnel; control of diseases: tuberculosis, malaria, sexually transmitted diseases; support for mother and child health; improving the environment; development and implementation of standardization and statistics in the field of health; combating the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster; the fight against the tobacco epidemic; introduction and support of traditional medicine and a number of others. The above list of directions is not exhaustive as their number and content are constantly being transformed. In particular, one of the new perspectives is pharmaceutics. Since the beginning of hostilities in eastern Ukraine, cooperation with the Organization has been aimed at providing practical assistance in the training of medical personnel, especially in military hospitals and front-line hospitals.