Environmental Health: Towards Synthesis in Global Law and Governance.

Abstract

International law and global governance regimes for environmental health challenges have been slow to reflect the intertwined relationship between the environment and human health. Historical legacies have caused artificial fragmentation between the two that has resulted in distinct fields of international law and institutions for the environment and health. However, new global paradigms for thinking about environmental health have emerged to foster synthesis under global health law, including One Health and Planetary Health approaches, as well as through international human rights law like the recognition of the right to a clean, safe, and healthy environment. Guided by equity, new international law and global governance reforms, including the proposed Pandemic Agreement and Plastics Treaty, are opportunities to synthesize the intersecting dimensions of the environment and global health. However, future paths towards cohesion must explicitly incorporate human rights in environmental health governance, including the rights of Indigenous Peoples, while actively addressing inequities in global health law, between and within countries, and across generations.