Abstract

This article provides a critical analysis of ‘the legal’ in the legal determinants of health, with reference to the Lancet–O’Neill report on that topic. The analysis shows how law is framed as a fluid and porous concept, with legal measures and instruments being conceived as sociopolitical phenomena. I argue that the way that laws are grounded practically as part of a broader concept of politics and evaluated normatively for their instrumental value has important implications for the study of law itself. This, in turn, has implications for how we approach the transdisciplinary ambitions that form a key part of the report’s recommendations to enhance law’s capacity to promote better, more equitable population health at local, national, international and global levels.