prof. mr. dr. B.C.A. (Brigit) Toebes

Brigit Toebes is a legal scholar with more than twenty-five years of experience in the international standards protecting health, with a strong emphasis on the role of human rights in health promotion and disease prevention. She is Rosalind Franklin Fellow and holds the chair of health law in a global context at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen. Since September 2022, she is scientific director of the Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health. Recent research themes include the scope and implications of global health law, the NCD pandemic and the regulation of behavioural risk factors (in particular smoking, unhealty diets, and alcohol), the regulation of vaccination, and the role of law in socio-economic health inequalities.
She is co-founder of the Groningen Centre for Health Law (former Global Health Law Groningen), which hosts around fifteen researchers focusing on various dimensions of health and human rights. She has published widely in legal, public health and multidisciplinary journals, including Human Rights Quarterly, Harvard Health and Human Rights, the BMJ, and Tobacco Control, and she participates in several international and domestic bodies (see below). Toebes has conducted research in the field of tobacco control since 2016, with a particular emphasis on developing a human rights approach. She frequently acts as a consultant to international bodies, including the WHO and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. In 2022, Brigit was awarded the Legal Specialist Award by the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL). Key publications include Health and Human Rights (2022, 2e ed), Human Rights and Tobacco Control (open access), and Research Handbook on Global Health Law (2018). Contact: please send me an email.

Chair, Dutch Society of Health Law
Co-Chair, Global Health Law Committee, International Law Association (ILA)
Chair, Dutch state committee MDMA
Member Dutch Health Council and Committee on Ethics and Law
Chair of the Advisory Board, Dutch Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation
Member of the Advisory Board, Johannes Wier Foundation
Member of the Advisory Board, NCD Unit, University of Liverpool
Senior Honorary Fellow, University of Aberdeen School of Law
Member, Global Health Law Consortium
Member of the International Scientific Committee, Observatory on Human Rights: Bioethics, Health, Environment, University of Salerno
Fellow, Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL)
Member governing board, European Public Health Association (EUPHA)