One of the great myths of cervical cancer is that it only strikes women in impoverished countries like Somalia or Sierra Leone – countries that struggle to feed their people, let alone inoculate them against cancer. And to some degree, it’s true: cervical cancer kills more poor women than wealthy ones. Yet, even amid affluence, cervical cancer assails women no matter where they live. Persons with cervixes in the United States and other higher-income countries are routinely denied the means or knowledge for protecting themselves against this disease – even while sharing space with some of the world’s wealthiest inhabitants. In fact, those with female reproductive systems are marginalized everywhere, and thereby receive unequal access to the interventions for preventing this deadly cancer. The sound science for ridding the world of cervical cancer requires universal intolerance of the inequities that flourish in every corner of the globe. The political, social, cultural, and financial obstacles for eliminating this cancer must be addressed and removed, one by one, in order to give all persons with cervixes a fighting chance.

Cervical cancer is a disease of inequity. Ethnic minorities – regardless of where they live – are screened less often, diagnosed later, and die more often from this preventable cancer. While most cervical cancer deaths happen in lower-income countries, persons with cervixes are increasingly dying in marginalized communities within higher-income countries. In these parts of the world, preventing and treating cervical cancer is considered a privilege rather than a right – a lofty ideal rather than a budget staple. The COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated disparities in cervical cancer prevention and care, as fighting this illness took priority over issues like cervical screening and HPV vaccination. The pandemic laid bare the fragile state of women’s reproductive health care: how easily it could be disrupted by global public health emergencies. And yet, until global citizens call attention to worldwide political and financial disparities, it’s clear that geography, skin color, and the most emergent global health priority will continue to foster a wholly unacceptable rate of death by cervical cancer.

These past three or four centuries have seen bitter discord and inequity arising initially in the most base form of oppression, slavery itself. The centuries have seen turmoil, inequity, and some considerable movement forward. The great post–Civil War constitutional amendments, which owe their inspiration to Magna Carta itself, have set much of the framework as have legislation that was designed to improve conditions of the average worker in the past century itself. But President Lincoln’s great triumph was achieved through the Grand Army of the Republic on the ground and at sea – just as FDR’s New Deal was a background and inspiration for workers who sought self-help prior to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

The main criticisms of globalization fail to fully capture the interests of indigenous peoples. On the one hand, the challenges based on relative gains rarely advocate from the perspective of indigenous peoples or take into account the experiences of these communities in their arguments. In general, these perspectives completely ignore both the specific protections of indigenous peoples and the ways in which these groups can effectively participate by integrating into a cosmopolitan community more welcoming of these experiences, often assuming that, as the relative losers, they are uninterested in incremental change and participation. This may not be true for all indigenous groups. On the other hand, perspectives based on absolute losses have been adopted by indigenous advocates who argue for systemic change, but fail to fully grasp this group’s interests. Regrettably, the sustainability perspective often disregards the interest of indigenous groups of participating in the gradual exploitation of their territories and resources.

This book offers pathways to extricate indigenous peoples from the impacts of economic globalization. It examines the complex interactions between human and economic-focused areas of international law – international economic law and human rights law mainly with one particular frame, that of the groups subjugated and marginalized by the process of globalization. I assert that, the ones truly left behind by the current form of economic interconnection are inter alia indigenous peoples. Their voices have been only slightly and recently taken into account in this current wave of contestation, and their perspective may provide a path for organizing transformational action. International economic law should enable the dissemination of core values of international law – human rights law in particular. In spite of their overlapping principles, a blind spot of international economic law is the limited engagement with the different notions of responsibility toward the planet that indigenous peoples often demonstrate. The author shares his years of practice and teaching experiences, which will be of use to international economic law lawyers and indigenous rights advocates.

The global ascendancy of neoliberal economics has deepened inequalities between and within nations and largely undermined efforts toward sustainable development. Based on a belief that the market should be the organizing principle for social, political and economic decisions, policymakers in many countries promoted privatization of state activities and an increased role for the free market, flexibility in labor markets and trade and investment liberalization. The benefits of these policies frequently fail to reach the indigenous peoples of the world, who acutely feel their costs, such as environmental degradation, cultural dispossessions and loss of traditional lands and territories. As vulnerable and often marginalized segments of the world’s population, indigenous peoples are at a heightened risk of experiencing the negative consequences of globalization. Understanding this reality could provide pathways for effective interventions to alleviate, overcome or, at the very least, minimize such effects.

One of the mechanisms by which power sharing contributes to the development of minimalist democracy, we argue, is by helping to distribute political power and resources more equitably across individuals and social groups. This chapter tests the existence of this relationship, which we refer to as involving the promotion of democracy from below. Our claim in this instance is that power-sharing institutions can help empower citizens and groups in ways that have the effect of enhancing their ability to participate in politics. This occurs as groups formerly excluded from politics are included in one or more domains of state power and as the distribution of resources enables individuals and groups, particularly those that were formerly marginalized, to take part in the political process.