Nome da Revista: Health and Human Rights Journal
Classificação: B2
Dossiê Temático: "Ecological Justice and the Right to Health” [Justiça Ecológica e Direito à Saúde]
Prazo: 31/03/2021
Titulação: não informada
Link para a chamada: clique aqui
Texto da chamada
Ecological Justice and the Right to Health
Guest Editors: Hope Ferdowsian, Mike Anastario, and Kris Weller
Increasingly, public health perspectives emphasize the link between ecological wellbeing and population health outcomes. One example is the One Health Initiative, which aims to promote interdisciplinary collaboration between those working in human medicine, veterinary medicine, environmental conservation, public health, governmental affairs, and international development in order to address the risk of global public health threats including changing climate conditions and zoonotic diseases with pandemic potential. Numerous patterns of exploitation illustrate how the rights, health, and wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet are interconnected.
Similarly, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals implicitly recognize the association between the degradation of ecosystems and the potential negative impacts on social, physical, and political determinants of health such as access to clean air and water, healthy soil and food, and adequate shelter. Various multilateral agencies, including the United Nations Environmental Program and the World Health Organization, have also committed to addressing environmental health risks. Nonetheless, these and other global organizations and international development frameworks generally neglect the relationship between ecological justice and the right to health, and the impact of economic and environmental trade-offs on growing inequities. Despite an urgent need to address interlinkages between the health of people, animals, and the environment, too little attention has focused on the connection between rights and health in this context.
Socio-historical forces including colonization, neoliberal international development strategies, private-public partnerships, and the consolidation of global conglomerates, have presented environmental challenges with wide-ranging impacts on rights and health, particularly for those at the economic and environmental margins. The hegemonic reach of modern agriculture in food, textile, and commodity production has become one of the largest planetary and public health threats to current and future generations.
It is now widely acknowledged that health risks are situated amid changing climates and environmental degradation, with extreme temperatures and weather patterns, poor air and water quality, and food insecurity contributing to violence and diseases of epidemic and pandemic proportions. Ongoing threats to social and cultural rights aggravate pre-existing health disparities particularly for Indigenous populations, people of color, ethnic minorities, and people living with disabilities.
Citizens, grassroots organizations, activists, and scholars are working toward holistic and creative solutions that acknowledge the relationship between ecological justice, rights, and social determinants of health. However, the peer-reviewed literature has thus far seldom addressed the interconnectedness of these issues, particularly in ways that consider the relationships among legal, economic, and political frameworks and health. Original research contributions are particularly lacking in the aforementioned areas.
This special section aims to explore the conceptual and practical connections between ecological justice and the right to health. Of particular interest are papers that go beyond locating and describing problems to identifying leverage points for changes that could enhance the rights, health, and wellbeing of the most vulnerable stakeholders.
Papers on this topic could address human rights aspects of these issues through an examination of:
country-focused case studies on the impact of environmental policies on the right to health, including prevention of mental and physical illnesses associated with environmental degradation
consistency across multi-lateral agencies, with respect to communication about and implementation of environmental guidance that affects health and human rights
disproportionate effects of environmental degradation on the rights and health of vulnerable populations, with a particular focus on children and adults dependent on familial, community, or institutional supports, and their caregivers in these environments
intersections between social and environmental justice that impact the right to health
relationships between the legal, political, and economic treatment of animals and the natural environment, and health and human rights
how international frameworks such as the One Health Initiative and the Sustainable Development Goals address, or could better address, the right to health
the potential influence of expansive rights frameworks, including other than human rights, on human health outcomes
Submission details
Papers must be submitted by 31 March 2021
Full papers have a maximum word length of 7,000 words, including references. We also invite Perspective Essays of up to 3000 words, including references, on this topic.
Author guidelines are available here.
Questions about this special section can be directed to Carmel Williams, Executive Editor, Health and Human Rights Journal, williams@hsph.harvard.edu, or Hope Ferdowsian, at the Phoenix Zones Initiative and the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, hrf@phoenixzonesinitiative.org or hferdowsian@salud.unm.edu.