DIGITAL HEALTH GOVERNANCE: ASEAN AND THE THREE NARRATIVES OF DIGITAL (IN)JUSTICE

International law has provided limited formal responses to digital health technology challenges, as evidenced by the absence of binding legal agreements. Yet international law continues to shape digital health and influence global perspectives on digital health innovation. This article distills the complex global digital health discourse by presenting a conceptual framework of three competing narratives in digital health governance: technological solutionism, human rights, and data sovereignty. The technological solutionism narrative—frequently employed by international development agencies—portrays digital health innovations as solutions to healthcare access disparities and digital divides. While the human rights narrative critically challenges this view, the international human rights law framework has not adequately addressed power dynamics in digital health infrastructure ownership despite its aim to fill technological solutionism's normative gaps. Meanwhile, data overeignty has emerged as a counterforce to perceived Western dominance in the digital sphere and the US hegemony more broadly, with China playing a significant role in shaping this narrative. Through examining how the digital health discourse unfolds in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), this article demonstrates that as the global digital health landscape grows in complexity, there is a pressing need to understand the discursive patterns that shape digital health innovations through international law—and the distribution of negative and positive externalities—within the global context.