Obijiofor Aginam

Obijiofor Aginam, PhD has held senior positions at the United Nations University serving as Senior Research Fellow & Chief of International Cooperation and Development at the United Nations University-Institute for Sustainability and Peace, United Nations University headquarters in Tokyo (2007-2013), and Deputy-Director and Head of Governance for Global Health at the United Nations University-International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2013-2019). He is currently a Principal Visiting Fellow at UNU-IIGH, Adjunct Research Professor of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, and most recently a Visiting Research Fellow at UN University-Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS), Bruges, Belgium. He was a tenured Associate Professor of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University, (2001-2007), and Global Health Leadership Officer at the World Health Organization headquarters, Geneva (1999-2001) where he worked on the review of the International Health Regulations (IHR) in the Communicable Diseases Cluster of WHO. He has been a fellow of the Social Science Research Council of New York on “Global Health Security and Cooperation”. Dr. Aginam has served as legal consultant of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) on “governance of anti-microbial resistance”, and trade and food safety involving field missions to Bangladesh and Laos. He was a member of the United Nations Inter-Agency Taskforce on Non-communicable Diseases (2014-2019), and a visiting professor at the University for Peace, Costa Rica, and universities in Italy, South Africa, and Japan. He serves on the editorial board of Global Health Governance: The Scholarly Journal for the New Health Security Paradigm. Dr Aginam holds a PhD in Law from University of British Columbia. He is the author of several publications on global health security, governance, diplomacy, and regulatory issues in pandemic preparedness and response including Global Health Governance: International Law and Public Health in a Divided World.