At the McCabe Centre for Law & Cancer, we’ve always believed in the power of the law and its effectiveness to prevent and control cancer. And for over a decade, our International Legal Training Program (ILTP) has been equipping legal and policy professionals with the skills to drive real change.
Our new study has confirmed just how far that impact goes!
Since our founding in 2012, we’ve delivered 13 ILTP sessions—nine in-person and four online—bringing together 450 participants from 97 countries and territories between 2014 and 2024. These government lawyers and policymakers have taken what they learned and transformed it into action.
Real world impact: changing laws = changing lives
The ILTP isn’t just about education - it’s about impact, and our study revealed that the program through individual participant priority projects has contributed to:
✅ Legal and policy changes in 30 countries to strengthen laws on cancer and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)
✅ Defence of laws from legal challenges brought by the tobacco industry in five countries, ensuring that strong policies remain in place
✅ The initiation of a legal challenge against the tobacco industry in one country to recover healthcare costs
That’s more than 30 countries where the ILTP has contributed to laws or policies being strengthened or defended to protect public health - with nearly 3 billion people now benefiting from improved NCD laws and policies - directly influenced from our ILTP workshops and ongoing support!
Law is an effective tool for NCD prevention and control
Our evaluation shows that specialised training for government lawyers is effective in driving legal and policy change to better prevent and control cancer and NCDs globally. Legal capacity building programs such as the ILTP are essential for addressing NCDs and must be continued and expanded.
We know the true impact of the ILTP is even greater than the results of this study. Law and policy reform is a long-term and collective endeavour and change can take a long time and be impacted by a multitude of factors. Alumni continue to work on priority projects involving law and policy change in at least 13 countries. We also know our impact extends beyond the ILTP, with technical assistance provided regularly going beyond the nominated priority projects examined in this new study.
Work on a second article will review the broader impacts of the ILTP through in-depth alumni and stakeholder perspectives, which we hope to publish later this year.
Looking Ahead: our 14th International Legal Training Program starts in August 2025
Our work doesn’t stop here. With each ILTP, we continue to expand our network of changemakers who are committed to using the law as a tool, intersecting law with public health protections.
Stay tuned for updates, if you or your colleagues are interested in joining us, keep an eye out for more details coming soon.
See our ILTP Evaluation report – now published in Health Promotion International here:
Harnessing law for global noncommunicable disease control: evaluating a legal training program, 2014–23 | Health Promotion International | Oxford Academic
And the full version here - Download report
Together, we can build a future with law as a force for good, where public health outcomes are improved.
Change the law, and you change millions of lives!