As the World Humanitarian Summit and the World Health Assembly convene on the same day in different cities, The PLOS Medicine Editors support a role for health in the UN Agenda for Humanity.

Note UNCTAD serves as the focal point within the United Nations Secretariat for all matters related to foreign direct investment (FDI) and transnational corporations (TNCs). and Development. UNCTAD seeks to further understanding of the nature of TNCs and their contribution to development and to create an enabling environment for international investment and enterprise development. UNCTAD's work...

This paper overviews the historical background and development of applied nutrition and community nutrition in Korea. The nutrition studies in the early years focused on animal experiments, human metabolism, and food analysis and therefore were limited to classrooms and research laboratories in universities without spreading into the lives of people. Korean specialists trained through the UN In...

• United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UN, 1982 (known as UNCLOS)), which includes a call for a maximum sustainable yield (MSY) approach to managing fisheries; • United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UN, 1992a (known as UNCED)), including Chapter 17 of Agenda 21 which highlights a precautionary approach; • United Nations Straddling Fish Stocks Agreement of 1995 (...

FAO, and its Nutrition and Consumer Protection Division, needs to maintain its strong and active role in the field of nutrition by providing an agricultural and food friendly perspective to nutritional problems and therefore a food and agriculture approach to their solution. This underlies the importance of FAO for nutrition and the importance of nutrition for FAO. FAO cannot leave it to other ...

High Skilled Immigration in the International Arena This conceptual paper, prepared for a United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Migration and Development, is concerned with the international mobility of high-skilled workers, previously referred to as the “brain drain”. After discussing the historical background of high-skilled international migration, the paper examines the reasons for the rec...

On May 18, 2001 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) proclaimed kutiyattam, the Sanskrit theatre of India, one of nineteen "Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity." This was the first time in history that this art has received a prestigious international recognition (see www.unesco.org/bpi/intangible_heritage/india.htm). To celebrate this m...

The issue of whether medical practitioners should perform "ritual nicks" as a method of meeting demand for female genital mutilation (FGM) has recently been debated in the United States and Australia. Due to increasing numbers of people arriving and settling in Australia from African nations in which FGM is customary, demand for FGM in Australia is present and may be increasing. Australian law ...

The developing countries of the world face many major social challenges, among these challenges is education. It seems that the tendency would be to merely transport current educational pedagogy to these developing nations. But the existing pedagogy primarily fosters the development of ruled-based thinking, which will not suffice given the demands of the current day. Thus a new model for educat...

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, referred to as the Plant Treaty, was approved on 3 November 2001 by Members of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), headquartered in Rome, Italy. The FAO is an agency of the United Nations, headquartered in New York City, New York. The Plant Treaty established international standards for the conservation and e...