Literature Review

The article by Holly Graham explores the health perspectives and practices of the Plains Cree people of Thunderchild First Nation, emphasizing their holistic approach to health through the lens of the Medicine Wheel. Elder Fox highlights that Indigenous knowledge, including the Medicine Wheel, is communal and foundational for spiritual growth and health practices.

This article examines multiple Indigenous perspectives on health, spirituality, and ecosystems. It highlights how Indigenous communities integrate spiritual forces with environmental and health practices, as seen in Guatemala, Laos, and Cambodia. Traditional medical systems, often deeply connected to local ecosystems and spiritual beliefs, are preferred by many Indigenous people due to their effectiveness and accessibility. These systems are resilient but face challenges from displacement and cultural erosion.

This paper, focused on the Indigenous peoples of the Chiapas region of Mexico, outlines the Indigenous perspective on health prior to colonization and today. Prior to colonization, Mayan peoples viewed health as linked with cosmology and their broader worldview; health was tied to the struggle between good and evil. Good health was seen as the standard, and ill health as a deviation caused by supernatural interferences. Good health thus required “harmony with the expectations of his society and…peace with others”. Social balance/imbalance is central to this perspective. Some social expectations that can lead to good health include respect for elders, tradition, and environment. Modern Indigenous peoples in the area define health as peace, happiness, and absence of social problems as well as freedom from disease. Many centered “being well” in family and community, harmony, having land, and producing food in a healthy environment. Land was considered a primary source of life that nourishes and supports health, not a mere resource.

This article underscores the need to address health inequity systemically, noting that effective health care systems emphasize primary care, prevention, and local services across all government sectors, civil society, and the private sector. It involves promoting gender equality, racial equality, universal healthcare, and narrowing the wage gap. Effective government also requires fair representation and decision-making.

This article is a review of the book Social Determinants of Health (1999). It delves into ten key social determinants of health: work, unemployment, early life conditions, addiction, food, transportation, stress, social exclusion, social support, and social gradient. The book argues that health disparities are rooted in social structures rather than health care or genetics and emphasizes the pervasive nature of health inequalities across the socioeconomic spectrum. The book explores how social conditions affect biological processes and health outcomes and focuses on policy implications and recommendations for addressing health inequity. The book is seminal in the field, essential to understanding and addressing social determinants of health with broad relevance for policymakers and public health practitioners. 

This article is seminal in the field, having coined the term “health equality”. It explores the racial disparities in southern medical facilities despite legal and legislative advancements aimed at promoting racial equality and highlights the contrast between theoretical equality enshrined in laws and the continued practice of racial segregation, discrimination, and inferior conditions for Black patients in healthcare settings.

This study highlights the evolution of health equity research and underscores the ongoing need for comprehensive approaches to address and understand health disparities globally. It highlights the significant evolutions in health equity research from its evolution in the 19th century to through 2019. The key development highlighted is the discussion of social determinants of health and health inequalities.

In 2020 Colombia’s Constitutional Court handed down a decision disallowing a writ of habeas corpus originally brought by a law professor to protect the individual freedom from captivity of a spectacled bear named Chucho. This paper explores the background to the case and the legal opinions expressed by members of the Constitutional Court regarding the possibility of assigning the status of ‘subject of rights’ to a non-human animal. It discusses a recent attempt to theorise non-human legal personhood and makes the invitation for a shift of emphasis: away from the ‘subject of rights’ and toward a jurisprudence that pays attention to the ways in which species of animal such as bears feature as active participants in legal thought.

Plastic pollution poses a signiicant challenge to the environment, biodiversity, and human health. Each year, the world produces 300 million tons of plastic waste, equivalent to the weight of the planet's entire human population. Only 9% of plastic products worldwide are recycled due to a pervasive throw-away culture and ineficient policies for managing single-use plastic. Over time, plastics fragment into smaller pieces, distributed across ecosystems by wind and rainfall. Marine and terrestrial wildlife accidentally ingest these smaller plastics, leading to a build-up of toxins in tissues. These toxins are transferred to other species, including humans, through the food chain. This document proposes two policy options to address this issue: (a) replacing conventional plastics with more environmentally friendly alternatives or (b) transitioning to a circular economy focused on reducing, reusing, repairing, and recycling. We urge the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to pursue the latter by leading the development and implementation of a comprehensive global policy agenda for the appropriate and effective management of plastics. This would include the development of inancial, environmental, and social estimators to quantify, manage, and reduce plastic waste. A UNEP-led global plastic policy agenda has the potential to standardize and regulate plastic production, consumption, and waste management and ultimately reduce the negative impact of plastics on ecosystems and human health.

Climate change is a global environmental problem, one of the causes of which is deforestation. As the second largest province in Indonesia, with forest area reaching 50% of the total area, Central Kalimantan has a vital role in environmental problems and deforestation. Government policies that convert forests into non-forest areas increase the rate of deforestation and increase global emissions. Deforestation is a worldwide problem that requires joint attention in handling, especially for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as the international environmental regime. This research is a type of qualitative research that uses analytical descriptive methods to describe the phenomenon of deforestation in Central Kalimantan and UNEP's role in overcoming it. Library study techniques are used to collect research data in documents, which are compiled, analyzed, and concluded. UNEP's role in realizing SDG 13 is examined using an international regime approach through global diplomacy. The research results show that UNEP, as an international regime, plays a vital role in making global regulations regarding handling climate change from the deforestation sector through REDD+. In its implementation, UNEP assisted Indonesia in implementing REDD+ in Central Kalimantan and acted as a catalyst, facilitator, advocate, and educator on the issue of deforestation in Central Kalimantan in 2017-2020. This research is essential to show the urgency of the multi-stakeholder role in global diplomacy in dealing with climate change.

This Assessment Update by the Environmental Effects Assessment Panel (EEAP) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) considers the interactive effects of solar UV radiation, global warming, and other weathering factors on plastics. The Assessment illustrates the significance of solar UV radiation in decreasing the durability of plastic materials, degradation of plastic debris, formation of micro- and nanoplastic particles and accompanying leaching of potential toxic compounds. Micro- and nanoplastics have been found in all ecosystems, the atmosphere, and in humans. While the potential biological risks are not yet well-established, the widespread and increasing occurrence of plastic pollution is reason for continuing research and monitoring. Plastic debris persists after its intended life in soils, water bodies and the atmosphere as well as in living organisms. To counteract accumulation of plastics in the environment, the lifetime of novel plastics or plastic alternatives should better match the functional life of products, with eventual breakdown releasing harmless substances to the environment.

Your Excellency William Samoei Ruto, President of the Republic of Kenya, Your Excellency Leila Benali, President of UNEA-6 and Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development of Morocco, Your Excellency Dennis Francis, President of the 78th UN General Assembly, Her Excellency Paula Narváez, President of the Economic and Social Council, Excellencies, distinguished guests and friends. Welcome to the opening of the High-Level Segment of the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi. The environmental capital of the world, as we like to call it. My thanks to you, President Ruto, for continuing and strengthening Kenya’s commitment to UNEP and indeed to global environmental action. Excellencies, We are here because the environmental crises facing the world are spreading and intensifying. We are living in an age of climate emergency; the warning lights on the planetary dashboard are glowing red hot. We are living in an age of withering nature, dying lands and vanishing species. We are living in an age of a planet and people poisoned by chemicals, by plastic, by waste and pollution of all kinds. Our high-carbon, resource-hungry growth has sent some planetary systems teetering to the edge of tipping points. Once these systems fall, they may never rise again. And humanity might also find itself floored. But we cannot and must not despair. Because the power to change lies with us. With you. With the members of this Assembly, the governments they represent and all who make up the wider UNEA and UNEP family – from Multilateral Environmental Agreements to scientists, from civil society to youth, from Indigenous Peoples to the businesses and financiers who know they must do things differently. We, this global family, must stand shoulder-to-shoulder and push back, as one, against the triple planetary crisis to create space for the climate to stabilize, nature to recover and pollution to recede, in so doing providing the basis for economies and societies to flourish sustainably. We must push back against this crisis in lockstep to create space for those who follow, in so doing creating intergenerational equity and helping youth to grow stronger and wiser than those whose who went before. Excellencies, We cannot push back with the force required if we are divided. True strength comes from unity. So, I ask this Assembly to do what it does best. I ask this Assembly to put aside national and regional differences and remember that we all live on this little blue planet called Earth. Think of planetary cycles, not electoral cycles. Think long term. Look beyond the horizon. Remember that if my air is dirty, if my climate is changing, if my shores are awash with plastic, yours are too. We stand together or we fall together. That is inclusive environmental multilateralism. I ask this Assembly to once again show the Nairobi Spirit that fills these rolling hills. The Spirit that, two years’ ago, put us on a path to ending plastic pollution. To conclude the hard work that has gone on over the past weeks and months by passing the resolutions and decisions on the table in the strongest form possible. Show the world that the Nairobi Spirit is alive. And, of course, implement the resolutions with speed and determination. But I also ask you to recall that this Assembly is much more than one set of resolutions or decisions. This is where the global community gathers to think big and dream bigger. To reimagine how we can work better, smarter, harder and faster – together. To hold the future that we want in our mind’s eye and make it happen. We saw that vision yesterday, when many of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements that set the global guardrails on the environment came together in Nairobi for the first time. It was a bit of a family reunion. They sought ways to lift each other up, unite and become more than the sum of their parts. These agreements have already delivered many results. Protected the ozone layer, many species and huge areas of land and sea. Slowed the rate of climate change. Raised the profile of desertification and land degradation action. Eliminated toxic substances dangerous to human and planetary health. And more. Made in UNEP, they are making massive progress and delivering on environmental multilateralism. If they can do more by unifying their efforts, and if we can all follow suit, the future we all want will become a reality. Excellencies, As I said, we are living in an age of intensifying environmental threats. But we are also living in an age of cascading commitments, hope and action. The environmental movement, as embodied in this Assembly, is bigger than ever. Stronger than ever. More united than ever. We can push back against the triple planetary crisis if we show unity of purpose, at this Assembly and beyond. Purpose to shun fossil fuels and look to renewable energy sources. Purpose to conserve and restore the natural world and our lands, which give us life. Purpose to keep harmful chemicals, pollution and waste out of our ecosystems and yes, out of our bodies. This is our great task, the most important one we will ever undertake. Billions of people are depending on us to succeed. Let us not let them down. Thank you.