Climate change, biodiversity loss, and antimicrobial pollution caused by human activity are placing pressure on global microbiota. However, microbial protection remains mostly absent from international law and global governance frameworks. This policy brief highlights the chronic marginalisation of microbes in international health, environmental, and human rights law, as well as in governance frameworks addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Drawing on recent genomics and humanities research, it argues that policymakers need to abandon interventions designed to control or combat individual microbes in favour of microbiota-oriented governance. This brief discusses three major areas (pollution thresholds, microbial conservation, and the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment) where change is already occurring.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health challenge that, like climate change, demands urgent, coordinated, multi-sectoral action. Yet, responses to AMR may be ill-suited to local contexts, overlook historical inequalities, or dismiss marginalised knowledge systems. Some of these concerns can be discussed using the concept of a just transition, which aims to ensure that “no one is left behind,” “all voices are heard,” and past injustices are addressed. However, framing justice in these terms is insufficient. We argue for a more multifaceted and broader-scoped understanding of what justice demands in a just transition for AMR. We examine existing justice frameworks in AMR literature and discuss two cases that motivate our call for including both more forms of justice in a multifaceted concept of a just transition and a broader scope of justice. The first case involves over-the-counter antibiotic access in the Kibera informal settlement near Nairobi, highlighting structural injustices resulting from colonial oppression and what an Ubuntu philosophy would show as injustice. The second case concerns veterinary prescription requirements for Maasai pastoralists’ livestock farming in southern Kenya and highlights epistemic and distributive injustices, as well as injustices that befall non-human animals. These examples reveal distinct injustices shaped by socio-cultural and ecological contexts.