ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the horizontal and vertical means of governing the medical tourism in a globalised world. It highlights the regional and global agreements, conventions and the court law as instruments that can be employed in good governance practices. Medical tourism has gained political support, both within Europe and beyond, not least within policy programmes to create a European single market and in the context of international trade agreements. Governance research within political science investigates how individuals or organisations structure their actions which, in sum, coordinate activities to solve collective problems. In a closely related way, the ifs and hows' of liability for complications arising from medical treatments abroad are another important regulatory factor in cross-border medical care. Much of the literature on cross-border health care contains an underlying assumption, namely that more mobility would favour a tendency towards liberalisation of national laws which regulate biomedical practices.