Reimagining Global One Health Governance: How the International Mental Health Organization and the International Health Tribunal Bridge Psychosocial and Environmental Frontlines

Abstract

The classical One Health paradigm—centered on the biological interdependence of humans, animals, and the environment—does not adequately address the deepening psychosocial consequences of climate change, ecological collapse, armed conflict, and mass displacement. This commentary presents the International Mental Health Organization (IMHO) and the International Health Tribunal (IHT) as institutions that operationalize a new architecture of global health governance rooted in psychosocial protection. IMHO deploys interdisciplinary crisis response strategies that integrate mental healthcare, community-based resilience programs, and legal-humanitarian diplomacy. Concurrently, IHT establishes a precedent-based framework for prosecuting systemic neglect of psychosocial health under international law. Based on case studies from Colombia, Gaza, Haiti, and Mozambique, I illustrate how traditional health frameworks systematically overlook collective trauma and emotional collapse. I also introduce practical tools—such as cumulative trauma indicators, regional stabilization hubs, and the proposed Convention on Mental Health Protection—to institutionalize psychosocial foresight within the One Health Security doctrine. Ultimately, these institutions reframe mental health not as a derivative concern, but as a foundational element of international security, and call for an intergenerational and intercontinental pact to uphold psychosocial resilience as a universal legal and ethical imperative.

Keywords

One Health Psychological impacts Public health preparedness/response International coordination Global health governance

One Health Reconsidered: Beyond the Classical Triad

While the classical triangular model—linking human, animal, and environmental health—was reinforced during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been officially expanded under the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Quadripartite’s One Health definition to include plant health and to emphasize sustainability, equity, and multisectoral cooperation. However, even this broadened formulation remains inadequate for capturing emerging patterns of collective human suffering, including psychosocial trauma, psychological destabilization, and mass emotional dislocation.¹

While WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have developed robust instruments for zoonotic threat detection and cross-sectoral biosecurity, these mechanisms consistently overlook the long-term psychosocial consequences of environmental disasters, armed conflict, and forced migration.² For instance, recent CDC national prioritization reports continue to treat mental health as marginal in zoonotic planning.³ While this commentary focuses primarily on the human dimension of One Health, I acknowledge that animal wellbeing and ecological degradation are integral to the broader psychosocial consequences of systemic disruptions.¹ This omission persists despite the Quadripartite One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022–2026)⁴ and the WHO–One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP) definition, both of which broaden the One Health paradigm to explicitly include mental, social, and ecological wellbeing.

Psychosocial Collapse as a First-Order Indicator of Systemic Breakdown

The International Mental Health Organization (IMHO) proposes a structural revision: mental health must be regarded not as a derivative of other crises, but as a primary axis of instability. WHO postpandemic global assessments show alarming surges in depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in conflict- and disaster-affected populations.⁵

Despite such data, few One Health models incorporate mental health analytics. Several recent frameworks, including Utrecht University’s Environmental Health Perspective Framework,⁶ the Planetary Health model supported by members and supporters of the Planetary Health Alliance,⁷ and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s trauma-integrated preparedness metrics,⁸ recognize the role of psychological distress in systemic fragility and community resilience. Similarly, the University of Tokyo has pioneered urban public health planning that integrates psychosocial stress indicators into emergency preparedness.⁹ In light of these precedents, IMHO introduces the category of “collective psychological suffering” as a metric of socioenvironmental collapse and public health emergency.¹⁰

Institutional Recalibration: The Role of IMHO and IHT

IMHO operates as a transnational institutional actor, proposing governance mechanisms centered on psychosocial resilience and justice. Its model merges public health, environmental policy, and human rights law into a unified framework of mental health intelligence and community-based early warning systems.¹¹

In parallel, the International Health Tribunal (IHT) functions as a jurisdictional arm, enabling legal accountability for large-scale psychological harm. By prosecuting systemic neglect or violence that leads to population-wide mental trauma, IHT establishes mental health accountability as a tenet of international humanitarian law.¹²

Together, IMHO and IHT constitute a normative shift—proposing a governance structure that recognizes psychosocial suffering as a justiciable harm and institutionalizes mental health protections within the One Health paradigm.¹³

Systemic Gap in International Protection of Psychosocial Health

The Legal Vacuum: Absence of Enforceable Instruments

One of the most underestimated structural failures of the international governance system is the lack of binding legal protections for psychosocial health. Instruments such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights¹⁴ (Article 12) affirm the right to health, but fail to establish enforcement mechanisms to hold states accountable for violations of psychological integrity during war, ecological collapse, or forced migration.¹⁵ Following the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in the United Kingdom, qualitative diary-based studies documented prolonged distress, grief, community trauma, loss of trust in authorities, and even suicidal thoughts among rural populations facing mass livestock culling.¹⁶

At present, mental health lies outside the jurisdictional scope of most global legal institutions. Neither the International Criminal Court nor the International Court of Justice has interpreted collective psychosocial injury as a form of state-level responsibility. Yet clinical studies confirm that intergenerational trauma from climate displacement, military occupation, and collapse of local ecosystems continues for decades.¹⁷ Recent policy advancements, such as the One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022–2026)⁴ developed by the Quadripartite alliance explicitly acknowledge the interconnectedness of human, animal, plant, and environmental health. This broader framing supports the inclusion of mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in global One Health strategies.⁵

The proposal for the IHT as a dedicated jurisdiction for psychosocial crimes is a critical step in closing this normative gap. IHT’s legal innovations include the codification of “psychosocial collective harm” and “institutional abandonment trauma” as violations of humanitarian law.¹⁸

Ecological Breakdown as a Mental Health Catalyst

Mounting scientific evidence confirms that ecological degradation directly contributes to psychological disorders such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, and somatization. Droughts, floods, desertification, and forest fires operate as “climate stressors” that trigger chronic mental health effects equivalent to violent trauma.¹⁹

A recent International Organization for Migration report on zoonotic crises in Somalia called for the integration of sociopsychological indicators in One Health monitoring protocols.² Still, psychological consequences of environmental degradation remain deprioritized in conventional One Health design.

In response, IMHO and IHT propose the formal recognition of “environmental traumatic harm”—defined as irreversible psychological deterioration caused by the collapse of vital ecosystems. Such recognition would allow both legal remedy and policy triage for displaced or emotionally destabilized populations.

Illustrative Case Narratives

These illustrative case studies are divided into 2 functional groups. The first group—Palestine and the Sahel—draws from field missions and legal innovations by the IMHO and IHT. The second group—Romania and Chile—analyzes national gaps in mental health integration within One Health governance frameworks. These cases collectively underscore the operational gap between legal frameworks and psychosocial realities across income levels.

Palestine and the Sahel

Palestine (Gaza Strip)

In the Gaza Strip, over a decade of blockade, combined with repeated military offensives, has caused a structural collapse of civilian mental health. WHO data estimate that 70% of children exhibit chronic PTSD symptoms, and over 40% of women suffer from moderate to severe depression.⁵

During its pilot mission, IMHO established mobile mental health units, used collective suffering indicators (fear concentration, withdrawal, mistrust) as early-warning variables, and documented mass trauma as evidence of humanitarian violations.¹¹ This intervention marked one of the first attempts to operationalize a psychosocially anchored One Health model in an active conflict zone, linking environmental degradation, emotional trauma, and public health collapse under a unified diagnostic framework.²⁰

Sahel Region (Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger)

In the Sahel, the overlap of climate insecurity and violent extremism has displaced over 4 million people and resulted in a surge of suicides among internally displaced youth.²¹ Camps lack psychosocial infrastructure, and traditional healing systems have been culturally eroded. In response, IHT proposed temporary environmental tribunals to adjudicate both ecological and psychological harm and hold governments accountable for nonprotection of psychosocial wellbeing.

As a result of the Sahel pilot, 2 regionally endorsed temporary tribunals—in Mali and Burkina Faso—are expected to issue rulings on water contamination and displacement-related trauma. Surveys and consultations conducted across the region documented a 34% increase in perceived legal recognition of psychological suffering and a 21% rise in trust toward local institutions.²² The Sahel pilot exemplifies how legal frameworks that explicitly recognize psychosocial suffering can restore institutional legitimacy and embed trauma-responsive principles within cross-border One Health architectures.

Romania and Chile

The Romania and Chile cases confirm that membership in the EU or OECD does not guarantee adequate One Health governance. Without integrated psychosocial strategies, even advanced economies fail to meet the demands of climate-related mental health resilience. Taken together, these case narratives demonstrate the strategic viability of psychosocial foresight as a diagnostic and stabilizing tool across varied geopolitical and economic contexts.

Romania

Despite being a European Union member, Romania lacks a national One Health coordination framework, resulting in fragmented responses to zoonotic outbreaks like rabies and African swine fever. Groundwater contamination and deforestation have compromised rural psychosocial stability, as communities face food insecurity and environmental dislocation.²³

Chile

In Chile, an Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) member, drought and wildfire events intensified by climate change have led to widespread respiratory illness and mental health disorders, particularly among elderly and rural communities. However, institutional responses remain fragmented, with no psychosocial component in national disaster plans.²⁴

IMHO as a Nonstate Executive Institution of One Health

Operational Mandate of IMHO From a One Health Perspective

The IMHO was established to address the institutional void in psychosocial protection within zones of armed conflict, ecological collapse, and state fragility. As a transnational nonstate actor operating under an emerging coalition governance framework, IMHO possesses executive autonomy that enables intervention in politically inaccessible or underserved regions, including Gaza, the Sahel, and areas affected by climate-exacerbated disasters.²⁵

IMHO’s operational doctrine aligns mental, physical, environmental, and social health within a unified One Health framework. In this view, psychosocial integrity is treated as inseparable from environmental security, access to infrastructure, and physical safety, reflecting a holistic approach to human resilience.

IMHO’s strategy rests on 3 institutional pillars: rapid emergency intervention through mobile psychosocial units, long-term community-based recovery, and legal-health mediation in zones of systemic trauma.

Integrated Health–Legal Actions in Crises

Unlike many public health entities, IMHO deploys dual-capacity missions, combining mental health field operations with legal monitoring of humanitarian law violations. Every mission collects data on potential violations—ranging from denial of access to water and medicine, to psychological abandonment of displaced communities.²⁶

For instance, during mass displacements, IMHO deploys mental health and psychosocial support units in parallel with teams of legal analysts. This dual strategy was implemented in both Rohingya refugee camps and postairstrike centers in Gaza, where environmental repair (eg, water, sanitation) was accompanied by structured psychosocial group interventions.²⁷

The goal is anticipatory detection: linking changes in environmental conditions (eg, water scarcity, deforestation, air toxicity) with signs of community-level distress—enabling timely intervention before systemic breakdown occurs.

Education, Mediation, and Community-Building as Tools of Stabilization

One of IMHO’s key innovations is its psychosocial self-support model, which treats community-based emotional recovery as a sustainable form of resilience. Rather than imposing external therapeutic standards, IMHO fosters local leadership, especially among youth.

The “Youth for Resilience” program is a flagship initiative launched in Colombia,²⁸ Gaza, and South Sudan, providing participants with training in peer support, trauma literacy, intercultural mediation, and emotional group facilitation.²⁹

These young leaders operate as frontline agents of emotional stabilization, reducing distrust, preventing withdrawal behaviors, and restoring a sense of communal meaning. Solidarity itself becomes a therapeutic mechanism, improving both individual and collective mental states.

This section offers 2 complementary clusters of case studies: (1) pilot interventions by IMHO and proposed IHT, and (2) national-level innovations in mental health-inclusive One Health frameworks. Together, they illustrate the potential of psychosocial protection to be mainstreamed across legal, diplomatic, and public health systems.

Case Study: Gaza Strip

Following the 2023 military attacks on Gaza, IMHO conducted one of its most integrated One Health interventions to date. Over 6 weeks, it deployed: mobile psychosocial clinics for displaced children and families, community-based group therapy sessions led by trained local facilitators, and environmental health assessments of destroyed sewage systems and contaminated aquifers.

IMHO conducted 47 therapeutic group sessions involving over 600 participants. The results were incorporated into a comprehensive report titled The Mental Health Consequences of Infrastructure Targeting: Gaza Case Study, which documented the relationship between environmental damage and PTSD symptoms in children.³⁰ The report was submitted to the UN Committee on the Protection of Civilians, advocating for a new humanitarian standard recognizing psychosocial harm from infrastructural destruction.

IHT as a Tribunal for Psychosocial Health Crimes

A New Tribunal for Systemic Neglect

The emerging IHT, one of the principal judicial organs of the IMHO system, represents a pioneering legal instrument for adjudicating systemic violations of psychosocial health at the international level. Although not yet fully operational, the IHT’s foundational statute, endorsed by several Coalition member states, establishes new criteria for defining, prosecuting, and remedying prolonged social suffering caused by environmental, climatic, or military actions.³¹ While termed a “tribunal,” the IHT is not an adjudicative body of the One Health system per se, but rather a restorative justice mechanism that integrates psychosocial harm into the legal accountability frameworks traditionally applied to environmental and humanitarian crises.

In contrast to the International Criminal Court or the International Court of Justice,³² which primarily adjudicate war crimes and genocide under the Geneva Conventions, the IHT introduces the concept of “crimes of psychosocial neglect.”³³ These include chronic violations of emotional security, abandonment of vulnerable populations, and deliberate erosion of social cohesion, with consequences equivalent to torture, deportation, or forced disappearance.³⁴

While the term “One Health Tribunal” may suggest judicial authority within the One Health community, its intended function is to establish psychosocial justice mechanisms that complement, rather than dominate, multisectoral collaboration. The IHT does not speak for One Health governance writ large, but rather introduces legal pathways for integrating mental, ecological, and animal dimensions of harm under existing humanitarian frameworks.

Environmental, Climatic, and Military Jurisdiction

The IHT’s jurisdiction encompasses 3 key domains: 1.

Environmental violence—systemic degradation (eg, toxic pollution, resource expropriation) producing collective emotional despair, identity loss, or ecotrauma

Climatic injustice—failure to protect communities from climate-related disasters (eg, floods, heatwaves, wildfires) despite prior risk assessments or scientific warnings³⁵

Military destabilization—use of psychosocial warfare tactics, including destruction of health systems, schools, and infrastructure critical to emotional security³⁶

Crucially, IHT jurisdiction applies not only to individuals but also to governments and private entities, including corporate actors complicit in environmental harm or postconflict neglect. This expands legal responsibility to “omission-based actors” who exacerbate psychosocial vulnerability through policy failures.

Precedents as Foundations for Future One Health Treaties

Each IHT ruling functions as both legal redress and policy precedent. Judgments are public and binding for ratifying states, but their interpretive value also informs broader treaty frameworks.

For instance, a decision requiring the establishment of psychosocial support services in climate refugee camps could form the basis for mandatory mental health infrastructure in all United Nations (UN)-funded humanitarian responses.³⁷

Precedents can be cited by regional courts, including Economic Community of West African States, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, or the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, thus expanding the One Health legal architecture into formal regional systems.

IHT and International Humanitarian Policy

Beyond its adjudicative role, IHT serves as a normative and diplomatic actor, aiming to bridge the gap between humanitarian discourse and enforceable protection. Its independence from the UN Security Council allows it to operate without obstruction by geopolitical veto powers.

Several low- and middle-income countries have endorsed the IHT as an alternative justice forum, rooted in postcolonial ethics and capable of addressing “slow violence” (eg, desertification, water crises, food collapse) as legally actionable phenomena.³⁸

Taken together, these examples reflect the layered operational potential of psychosocial justice—from international legal prototypes (IMHO/IHT) to nationally integrated One Health models—demonstrating that mental health can serve as a foundational axis of resilience in both humanitarian and development contexts.³⁹

Tools for Evaluating One Health Policy at the International Level

Indicators of Psychosocial Suffering

One Health policy evaluation must go beyond infection rates and vector mapping. In the context of global instability, indicators of psychosocial suffering—such as trauma prevalence, emotional withdrawal, or erosion of trust in institutions—are now essential for resilience measurement.⁴⁰

In 2024, IMHO piloted a “Cumulative Trauma Index” in Gaza and the Sahel, incorporating variables such as nightmare frequency, intergenerational withdrawal, and aid aversion. Academic proposals, including by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, have called for integrating mental health metrics into the Global Health Security Index (GHSI).^8,41

However, most existing One Health indices—including the GHSI⁴¹ and the Joint External Evaluation⁴²—continue to lack indicators related to collective trauma, psychosocial erosion, or emotional resilience. These tools primarily emphasize epidemiological surveillance and pathogen containment, offering insufficient integration of community-based mental health metrics or sociocultural stressors. For instance, the 2024 GHSI update contains no dedicated indicators on mental health preparedness, psychosocial recovery, or emotional resilience. Similarly, the 3rd edition of the Joint External Evaluation (2023) omits psychosocial criteria altogether, even within categories related to risk communication and community engagement. Addressing these gaps requires the development of a dedicated psychosocial resilience subindex, codesigned with affected populations and tailored to contexts of displacement, occupation, and ecological degradation. Comparable models of composite resilience indices—such as the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI)—demonstrate the feasibility of integrating nonbiomedical indicators into global monitoring frameworks. The GGGI includes dimensions such as institutional trust, perception of autonomy, and structural parity, all of which could inform the design of psychosocial resilience tools within the One Health context.⁴³

Just as cybersecurity, food safety, and pandemic preparedness have become cornerstones of global stability doctrines, there is an urgent need to elevate psychosocial wellbeing to the same strategic level. Across institutional frameworks, the absence of international norms governing collective trauma, mental health surveillance, and emotional infrastructure leaves critical gaps in health security planning.⁴⁴ Despite growing awareness, mental health remains peripheral in most national and multilateral resilience strategies.⁴⁵

Key policy reports from the United States and Canada stress that global mental health vulnerabilities—especially in conflict, displacement, and environmental crisis zones—require predictive systems, not reactive humanitarian responses.⁴⁶ However, integration efforts face legal, political, and operational barriers, particularly where mental health is not codified as a protected right.⁴⁷

WHO and OECD have both identified that radiological, biological, and chemical emergency protocols rarely include psychosocial recovery dimensions,⁴⁸ even though mental collapse has been documented to disrupt long-term stabilization and public trust.⁴⁹ Simulation exercises in Türkiye have shown that mental health is often the last component deployed and the first to be underfunded.⁵⁰

Meanwhile, the academic consensus points to the necessity of early-warning metrics—such as emotional withdrawal, intergenerational trauma, and institutional mistrust—to anticipate sociopolitical destabilization.⁵¹ As seen in One Health implementation reports, building a transdisciplinary workforce that includes psychologists, community responders, and indigenous health experts is essential.⁵²

To address these deficits, a global “psychosocial security pact” has been proposed to function as a legal and operational anchor within One Health Security doctrine. This pact would prioritize mental health as a frontline dimension of preparedness, comparable to cybersecurity infrastructure and epidemiological surveillance.⁵³

Jurisdictional Effectiveness of IHT

Although still in its formative phase, the IHT is developing juridical indicators to assess state-level compliance and normative transformation. Proposed metrics include: (1) number of rulings addressing psychosocial violations, (2) integration of verdicts into national disaster frameworks, and (3) reference in regional court proceedings.⁵⁴ Comparative models from zoonotic jurisprudence—such as trade restrictions following avian flu outbreaks—serve as analogues for mental health enforcement mechanisms.

Inclusion of Marginalized Regions

Bridging the psychosocial divide requires inclusive models of governance that recognize historically marginalized populations—not only as beneficiaries of aid, but as codesigners of One Health policy. Building on precedents such as Canada’s participatory One Health frameworks and indigenous-led pandemic surveillance in British Columbia,⁵⁵ this approach demands institutional mechanisms for horizontal governance.⁵⁶ Policies should mandate integration of community-led psychosocial diagnostics, legal standing for nonstate testimonies, and recognition of intergenerational trauma as a measurable health burden. In particular, indigenous justice systems offer models for balancing emotional, environmental, and spiritual harm, often absent from western public health law.⁵⁷ Institutionalizing such pluralistic approaches would enhance legitimacy, uptake, and long-term healing in fragile contexts. Evaluations of Indigenous-led frameworks in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand have documented improvements in institutional trust and alignment of services with cultural priorities, notably through access to data sovereignty and intergenerational community governance models.⁵⁸ The CDC’s missions in Uganda and Somalia highlighted that exclusion of rural health actors led to breakdowns in zoonotic control.⁵⁹

Diplomatic Effectiveness of IMHO

As a nonstate institution, IMHO’s legitimacy depends on its diplomatic track record in advancing psychosocial protections through legal-health agreements. Evaluation metrics include: (1) bilateral and multilateral memoranda of understanding, (2) number of missions conducted in fragile regions, and (3) ratification of IMHO model clauses in health law reforms.⁶⁰ Examples include IMHO-facilitated agreements on mental health integration in regional disaster plans in Colombia and the Philippines.

Psychosocial Early Warning Systems

IMHO has developed the prototype Psychosocial Early Warning System, which integrates the indicators: (1) mental health trends from primary care, (2) population-level expressions of distress (eg, protests, mass migration, service avoidance), and (3) social media sentiment mapping.⁶¹

Initial pilots in Pakistan and Myanmar showed predictive correlations between depression spikes and political instability, ahead of any epidemiological signal.⁶² The Psychosocial Early Warning System is positioned as a complementary tool to WHO’s Surveillance and Information Sharing Operational Tool.⁶³

Proposal: Global Register of Psychosocial Health

To address data fragmentation, IMHO has proposed the Global Register of Psychosocial Health (GRPH)—a centralized platform aggregating: mental health intelligence metrics, jurisdictional data from IHT proceedings, and crisis-region case studies.⁶⁴

This tool would function both as a repository for operational learning and as a support mechanism for international adjudication and donor coordination.⁶⁵ IMHO has proposed that GRPH be adopted by WHO’s health emergency architecture to ensure global institutional alignment.

Political Foresight: The Future of One Health Under IMHO and IHT

Scenarios of Future Challenges

Water Wars

With growing global water scarcity, conflicts over access to clean drinking water—particularly in transboundary river basins—are intensifying. The so-called “water wars” not only escalate geopolitical tensions but also trigger mass psychosocial destabilization, including ecological grief, forced migration trauma, and intercommunal distrust.⁶⁶ A One Health framework that excludes psychological resilience risks underestimating these cascading effects. The Indus, Mekong, and Nile river systems are among the most vulnerable hotspots identified by IMHO’s risk modeling unit.⁶⁷

Climate Migrations

According to the International Organization for Migration, up to 216 million people could be displaced by 2050 due to climate-related events. IMHO’s foresight simulations predict that mass migratory waves will overburden mental health systems, particularly in coastal Asia, Central America, and Sub-Saharan Africa.⁶⁸ Without regional early warning systems, host communities may experience cultural trauma, mistrust, and radicalization risks. In response, IMHO recommends creating regional mental stabilization centers linked to primary care facilities and One Health institutions.⁶²

Animal Health Crises

The combination of intensified animal production systems, biodiversity collapse, and inadequate veterinary infrastructure increases the likelihood of zoonotic spillover events in both low-income regions and periurban areas of middle-income countries.⁶⁹ Breakdowns in animal surveillance systems contribute not only to biological threats but also to collective fear, loss of trust in governance, and stigmatization of affected groups, especially pastoralist communities.⁷⁰

The Need for Regional “One Health Tribunals”

Given the growing legal blind spots in addressing psychosocial and environmental harm, the creation of regional “One Health Tribunals “is now under active discussion. These courts would have limited jurisdiction over: (1) state failures to respond to climate displacement, (2) obstruction of humanitarian access, and (3) neglect of trauma care systems in postdisaster zones. The IHT, while still being formalized, provides a scalable legal prototype for other regions (eg, African Union, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Southern Common Market), establishing justiciable standards for psychosocial wellbeing. The term “One Health Tribunal” is employed here not to suggest judicial authority by any of the One Health institutional actors per se, but to emphasize the necessity of legal mechanisms that reflect the intertwined impacts of environmental, animal, and human systems on psychosocial wellbeing. These tribunals aim to fill normative gaps where conventional international law fails to account for systemic emotional harm.

IMHO as a Global Health Stabilization Institution

The long-term vision for IMHO is to function similarly to WHO, but with a mandate dedicated to: (1) mental health protection, (2) prevention of collective trauma, and (3) psychosocial infrastructure building in fragile states. By deploying interdisciplinary field teams—composed of psychologists, public health experts, environmental engineers, and legal monitors—IMHO aims to redefine international crisis management as a psychosocially informed endeavor.

Convention on Mental Health Protection

A potential milestone in IMHO’s roadmap is the drafting of a multilateral convention on mental health protection, designed to: (1) establish minimum standards of care during humanitarian crises, (2) mandate civilian protections against mass trauma, and (3) legally obligate states to integrate mental health into emergency planning. The IHT would serve as the enforcement organ, adjudicating violations and issuing binding reparative measures. If adopted, this convention would formally elevate psychosocial health to the level of other protected rights under international humanitarian law—such as food, water, and medical access.

Recommendations

IMHO and IHT as Foundations of a New Global Ethic

The creation of the IMHO and the developing IHT constitutes one of the most profound normative realignments in global health governance since the establishment of the World Health Organization. These institutions emerge as structural correctives to persistent gaps in protection frameworks, particularly the legal and policy invisibility of psychological suffering. IMHO’s operational model, founded in its 2025 treaty, combines emergency response, psychosocial self-support education, legal monitoring, and diplomatic mediation. Simultaneously, IHT provides a normative enforcement mechanism, expanding humanitarian law to include violations of collective mental security.³⁴ Together, IMHO and IHT signal a shift toward a new global ethic—one in which mental health is treated with the same urgency as pandemic control, food security, or displacement prevention.

One Health Without Mental Health is a Fragmented Strategy

While the One Health doctrine has rapidly evolved—especially post-COVID—its integration of mental health remains partial, fragmented, and reactive. Most international frameworks prioritize zoonotic surveillance and climate modeling, while neglecting emotional stress, intergenerational trauma, and the psychosocial consequences of ecological loss and forced migration.⁵ Yet, global trends show a sharp rise in mental health disorders linked to environmental degradation, urban overcrowding, political instability, and economic inequality.⁴⁰ Without embedding mental health into One Health policies, systemic inefficiencies, mistrust, and policy fatigue will continue to erode the legitimacy of public health governance. We argue that mental health must be codified as a foundational pillar of the One Health Security doctrine.

The Need for an Intergenerational and Intercontinental Pact

The psychosocial health of future generations cannot be secured without institutionalizing mechanisms for transnational and intergenerational solidarity. Mental health should be viewed as a matter of global equity—not a secondary welfare issue, but a justice imperative. We call for a global pact—between low-, middle-, and high-income countries; between governments and civil society; and between youth and elders—that commits to universal access to psychosocial care, regardless of a person’s birthplace, displacement status, or exposure to climate risk.²⁸ IMHO and IHT are prototypes of this emerging paradigm: grassroots-built, internationally ratified, and normatively grounded in empathy, accountability, and resilience.

Call to Recognize Mental Health as a Component of International Security

Global security regimes continue to underestimate the destabilizing effect of chronic psychosocial distress. Yet depression, PTSD, suicide, and collective grief are closely linked to societal breakdowns—from domestic violence and radicalization, to state fragility and forced displacement. We therefore call on international stakeholders to elevate mental health to the level of cybersecurity, food safety, and epidemiological preparedness. Recognition must be followed by institutionalization: minimum protection standards, integration into national defense and development budgets, and formal legal frameworks.

Conclusion

The proposed convention on mental health protection, paired with the juridical infrastructure of the IHT, could anchor psychosocial protection in international law and prevent future humanitarian crises caused by mental health neglect. As demonstrated, the institutional invisibility of psychosocial harm in existing One Health security regimes is no longer tenable. A paradigm shift is required; one that recognizes mental health as not merely reactive care, but as anticipatory infrastructure for human security. Just as cybersecurity now governs not only digital threats but systemic trust, so must psychosocial protection become foundational to humanitarian foresight, resilience planning, and legal accountability. The architecture for such integration exists in fragments—from regional protocols to indigenous justice models—but it now requires political elevation, international codification, and investment commensurate with epidemiological preparedness regimes.

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