Mobilizing for Health Justice: Global Health Watch 7

This chapter explores the critical relationship between work and health, emphasizing how employment conditions act as a social determinant of health. It highlights the COVID-19 pandemic’s role in exposing disparities in workplace safety, particularly for essential and informal workers, and underscores the importance of decent work, unionization, and social dialogue. The text examines how capitalism exacerbates health risks through precarious employment, exploitation, and poor working conditions, with examples from industries like meatpacking, healthcare, and domestic work. It discusses global labor struggles, such as those by Kenyan health workers and Colombian domestic workers, which have secured rights and improved conditions. The document also outlines strategies to advance workers’ right to health, including enforcing safety standards, promoting social protection, and empowering worker organizations. Ultimately, it argues that collective action and inclusive policies are essential to achieving health equity in the workplace.

GHW_CH_C4: Chapter C4: Tax Justice: A Pathway to Better Health

This chapter explores how tax justice can significantly improve global health by addressing inequalities and funding public services. Taxes, described as society’s “superpower,” play a critical role in revenue generation, wealth redistribution, and discouraging harmful products. However, current tax systems are undermined by corporate tax avoidance, regressive policies, and international tax havens, disproportionately affecting low-income countries. The chapter highlights the 5Rs of tax justice—Revenue, Redistribution, Repricing, Representation, and Reparations—as key principles for reform. It critiques the OECD-dominated tax architecture and advocates for a UN-led Framework Convention on Tax to ensure fairness. Examples from Africa and Latin America illustrate the impact of tax reforms on health and climate resilience. The chapter calls for collective action to combat tax abuse, promote transparency, and ensure equitable health financing, emphasizing the need for progressive taxation and global solidarity to achieve health justice.

GHW_CH_C5: Chapter C5: Commercial/Corporate Determination of Health

This chapter highlights how transnational corporations (TNCs) and neoliberal policies prioritize profit over public health. Key harmful practices include aggressive marketing of unhealthy products (e.g., ultra-processed foods, fossil fuels), tax avoidance, lobbying to weaken regulations, and spreading health misinformation. Corporations exploit legal frameworks like intellectual property rights and investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) to evade accountability, while voluntary codes (e.g., UN Global Compact) fail to enforce ethical standards. The chapter critiques corporate tactics such as “health washing,” astroturfing, and strategic lawsuits (SLAPPs) to silence critics. Solutions proposed include binding international treaties, progressive taxation, breaking up monopolies, and reversing privatization to reclaim public services. The chapter calls for systemic change—shifting from neoliberal capitalism to models like degrowth, circular economies, and worker cooperatives—to prioritize health and equity. Civil society, governments, and investigative journalists are urged to challenge corporate power and advocate for enforceable regulations. The People’s Health Movement demands a New International Economic Order (NIEO) to dismantle corporate dominance.

GHW_CH_D1: WHO’s Compromised Role in Global Health Leadership

This chapter examines the declining leadership of the World Health Organization (WHO) in global health governance. It highlights how geopolitical tensions, ideological divides, and funding constraints have compromised WHO’s ability to fulfill its mandate. Key issues include the politicization of the World Health Assembly (WHA), where debates on gender and sexual health are often derailed by conservative governments, and the financial reliance on volatile voluntary contributions, which skews priorities toward donor interests. The chapter also critiques the shrinking space for civil society participation in WHO processes, contrasting it with the growing influence of private stakeholders and multistakeholder initiatives. The U.S. withdrawal from WHO under Trump’s administration exacerbates these challenges, threatening the organization’s financial stability and multilateral role. The chapter calls for reforms to democratize WHO, ensure flexible funding, and strengthen its capacity to address politically charged health determinants, such as conflict and reproductive rights, to restore its role as a leader in global health justice.

GHW_CH_D2: Chapter D2: Unpacking our Pandemic Failures for Future Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response

This chapter examines the failures in global pandemic response during COVID-19 and efforts to reform future pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (PPR) systems. While vaccine development was a biomedical success, inequitable distribution—termed “vaccine apartheid”—highlighted systemic flaws, particularly intellectual property (IP) barriers that restricted Global South access. Lockdowns exacerbated socioeconomic inequalities, disproportionately affecting marginalized groups. Revisions to the International Health Regulations (IHR) introduced equity principles, but the proposed Pandemic Accord (PA) struggles to address structural issues like IP monopolies, technology transfer, and health system strengthening. Negotiations reveal geopolitical tensions, with Global North countries resisting binding equity measures, such as the TRIPS waiver. The chapter critiques the reliance on public-private partnerships and market-driven solutions, advocating instead for a public goods approach to health. Despite recognition of inequities, reforms lack binding commitments to ensure equitable access to medical products or address gendered burdens of care, leaving future pandemic responses vulnerable to similar failures.

GHW_CH_D3 Chapter D3: Financing Pandemic Recovery, Prevention, Preparedness and Response

This chapter examines the financing of pandemic recovery, prevention, preparedness, and response (PPPR) in the context of recent U.S. actions, including its withdrawal from the WHO and freezing of international aid. It critiques the current financial architecture of PPPR, which is dominated by securitized, commodified, and market-driven approaches, often exacerbating inequities. The chapter highlights the historical role of Bretton Woods institutions in shaping global health financing through neoliberal policies, such as structural adjustment programs, and the growing influence of private actors like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It discusses the shortcomings of mechanisms like the World Bank’s Pandemic Fund and innovative financing tools, which prioritize profit over equity. The debt crisis in LMICs further strains health systems, diverting resources from essential services. The chapter calls for structural reforms, including debt relief, tax justice, and equitable governance, to ensure PPPR financing aligns with public health needs rather than corporate interests.

GHW_CH_E1: Chapter E1: National Struggles for the Right to Health

This chapter examines national struggles to institutionalize the right to health through legal frameworks and social movements. It highlights how constitutions worldwide increasingly recognize health as a fundamental right, though implementation remains uneven. Six case studies illustrate these challenges: 1. Rajasthan, India – The Right to Health Act faced fierce opposition from private doctors, leading to compromises. 2. Mexico – The government’s “Fourth Transformation” prioritized public health over privatization, emphasizing community engagement. 3. Colombia – Despite progressive laws, corporate interests hinder reforms to shift healthcare from a market good to a public right. 4. Kenya – Universal Health Coverage efforts struggle with affordability, equity gaps, and flawed insurance reforms. 5. South Africa – The National Health Insurance Act aims for equitable care but risks corporate co-optation without stronger public safeguards. 6. Argentina – A landmark mental health law promotes deinstitutionalization but lacks funding and systemic support. The chapter underscores that legal recognition of health rights is often the result of sustained activism, yet power imbalances, privatization, and weak enforcement persist. True progress requires ongoing mobilization, political will, and equitable resource allocation.