Roemer, Ruth
(public health law pioneer, 1916-2005)
pioneer in public health law. Born Ruth Joy Rosenbaum in Hartford, Conn. in 1939. A 1939 graduate of Cornell Law School, Roemer worked as a labor lawyer during the 1940s, representing clients such as the United Electrical Workers union. Her marriage to Milton Roemer led her to gradually shifted her focus to health law. This new direction was fostered by her role in a groundbreaking study of the laws governing admission to mental hospitals in New York state. Using the law to promote public health objectives became her primary aim after joining the faculty of UCLA in 1962. Eventually, Roemer's efforts began to concentrate on reducing tobacco use globally. In 1982 she wrote a book, published by WHO, which guided countries that wished to craft tobacco control policies. In 1993, she and Allyn Taylor of the University of Maryland Law School produced a document that outlined what would become the world's first public health treaty - the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The treaty was signed by 168 countries and ratified in 2003.