John Harrington, Professor of Global Health Law, School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University, presented at our MI Lunch series in May 2017. In his presentation, Professor Harrington proposed an alternative approach to global health law that 1.) focuses on national institutions and contexts as decisive influences on the scope and nature of globalised health governance, and 2.) acknowledges that global health interventions are structured by a range of spatio-temporal figures (or ‘chronotopes’), which have persuasive force owing to their resonance with wider cultural and political forms. Professor Harrington explored the potential of this alternative approach through a case study – namely a review of the 2010 US initiative to support biosecurity at health research laboratories in Kenya and elsewhere in Eastern Africa.