Legionnaires’ disease is now routinely discussed as an ‘emerging infectious disease’ (EID) and is said to be one of the earliest such diseases to be recognised. It first appeared in 1976 and its cause was identified in 1977, the same year that Ebola fever, Hantaan virus and Campylobacter jejuni arrived. The designation of Legionnaires’ disease as an EID was retrospective; it was not and could not be otherwise as the category only gained currency in the early 1990s. In this article we reflect on the changing medical understanding and social profile of Legionnaires’ disease in the decade or so from its recognition to the creation of EIDs, especially its ambivalent position between public health and clinical medicine. However, we question any simple opposition, between public health experts who approached Legionnaires’ disease as a new and worrying environmental threat that could be prevented, and clinicians who saw it as another cause of pneumonia that could be managed by improved diagnosis and treatment. We argue that in the British context of public spending cuts and the reform of public health, the category of ‘new’ diseases, in which Legionnaires’ disease was central, was mobilised ahead of the EID lobby of the early 1990s, by interested groups in medicine to defend infectious diseases services.

This contribution focuses on a particular aspect of the broader current debate on the accountability of international organizations, on the rather unexplored question whether and to what extent international organizations are bound by national law and may become accountable for not complying with it. While it is largely accepted that States may act on a private law level being subject to rules of national law and ultimately becoming accountable before national courts or other accountability mechanisms, it is more questionable whether the same is true for international organizations.

A review of scholarly writings on the subject and an extensive analysis of the actual case-law by international as well as domestic courts and tribunals produce the following findings: While national private law, such as contracts or torts, is regularly deemed applicable to international organizations, it is far more uncertain whether national public law, such as health and safety legislation, building regulations, or labor law legislation, is binding upon international organizations.

Many international organizations claim that the application of such national rules might interfere with their independent functioning and that internal staff, safety, and other rules and regulations should be applied instead. However, where such internal law of international organizations falls short of generally accepted standards, serious accountability gaps may occur.