As the stalled progress on the road to a Pandemic Treaty reminds us, the control of infectious disease is inherently an international issue. Whether we are talking about pandemics, anti-microbial resistance, or assistance to nations coping with the burden of endemic infections, relations between nation states and supra-national bodies such as the WHO and WTO are a key element of the problem. However, the dialogue between scholars of international relations and those working in the field of public health has been sporadic. Insight into the ways in which nation states and – increasingly non-governmental organisations – operate in relation to disease emergencies is urgently required. This workshop examines various aspects of the history of disease and international relations with a view to better understanding the political dynamics involved. infectious disease has long been at the heart of cooperation and competition between nations and there are some common threads – if not precise analogies – that may assist us in dealing with our present difficulties. At the same time, we aim to highlight new work in a field of history that has been unjustly neglected.

PROGRAMME

09:30-09:50 Registration

09:50-10:00 Opening Remarks

<Session 1>

10:00-10:30 Jeong-Ran Kim (University of Oxford)
From End of Empire to Cold War: US military and Disease Control in Korea, 1945-46

10:30-11:00 Sławomir Łotysz (Institute for the History of Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw)
Humanitarianism and Propaganda: Eastern European Medical Assistance to North Korea, 1950-1957

11:00-11:20 Refreshments

<Session 2>

11:20-11:50 Céline Paillette (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, UMR SIRICE, Committee for History of INSERM)
International Epidemic control, the whole and the part of the Entente cordiale, c. 1900-1920. A history of Epidemics Diplomacy

11:50-12:20 Benoît Pouget (Sciences Po Aix)
French and/or international? Malaria control in French West & Equatorial Africa 1945-1960

12:20-13:30 Lunch (speakers & audience)

<Session 3>

13:30-14:00 Koji Ozaki (Otemae University)
Quarantine Issues in 1870s Japan: Mainly about the Quarantine Committee meetings of 1878

14:00-14:30 Hyon-Ju Lee (Dankook University)
Foot-and-Mouth Disease, Cowpox Vaccine, and Anti-Vaccination in Early Twentieth-Century America

14:30-15:00 Hohee Cho (University of Oxford)
The Making of a Frontline Laboratory: The United States Naval Medical Research Unit No.2 and Wartime Colonial Medicine

15:00-15:20 Refreshments

<Keynote speech>

15:20-16:20 Mark Harrison (University of Oxford)

A Study in Extra-Territorial Health Intervention: The League of Nations Epidemic Commission in Greece, 1922-1923

16:20-16:30 Closing Remarks