Human rights and the environment (original) (raw)

Human Rights in relation to Environmental Protection (A Global Issue)

Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level. States shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making information widely available. Effective access to judicial and administrative proceedings, including redress and remedy, shall be provided. Human rights and environmental law have in common that they are both seen as a challenge to, or limitation on, the traditional understanding of state sovereignty as independence and autonomy. Despite their separate initial stages, it has become more and more acknowledged over the years that human rights and the environment are inherently interlinked. The present paper discusses about the correlation of human rights with environmental harms, climatic phenomena, environmental change etc. It finally concludes with supporting remedies for propounding human rights towards sustainable environmental growth.

The Environmental Protection: an emerging area of the Human Rights Introduction

Elements of the relationship between environmental protection and human rights have become the core of lively debate in recent years. Historical background of Human rights and environmental concerns have been matter of concern for all civilizations, as far as, human rights are concerned, the roots of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals can be traced out from humanitarian traditions,

The Development of Environmental Human Rights

2021

Human rights and the environment are linked with each other in two ways. Firstly, the environment is seen as precondition of the realization of human rights. Because human beings are dependent on the environment. We all meet our basic needs including air, water and food from nature. Individuals cannot exist without the mother earth. For this reason, human rights may not be enjoyed at the absence of a clean environment. Secondly, human rights can be an effective way to achieve environmental safety. These two linkages are united under the umbrella of environmental human rights. Environmental human rights are the rights of people to protect the environment for the sake of human beings. There have been numerous studies investigating the scope and types of environmental human rights. However, how the linkage between human rights and the environment has been evolved has not been discussed sufficiently so far. Accordingly, this paper aims to explore how environmental human rights have been developed over history. This research finds that environmental human rights have been developed by international environmental law more than international human rights law.

A Human Rights-Based Approach to Protecting the Environment Status, Critique and Alternatives

A Human Rights-Based Approach to Protecting the Environment Status, Critique and Alternatives, 2019

The consequences of human-made climate change are already felt, with more than half of the world’s animal population depleted between 1970 and 2014. The effects of humans on every aspect of our natural environment have made scientists consider that we are living in a sixth geological epoch – the Anthropocene, defined as humans being the main factor affecting the geology of our planet. Meanwhile, the legal system has failed to respond properly to the scientific knowledge that illuminates human intervention in the environment. This thesis focuses on providing an analysis from socio-legal and critical perspectives on a human rights-based approach to protecting the environment. In its first part, it focuses on the current legal status of such a right, its purpose and legal regime, and the benefits it brings as a legal tool, which aims to protect the environment. In its second part, this legal instrument is subjected to critiques regarding its flaws, such as its political character, its weakness as an economic, social or cultural right, the occurrence of conflicts of rights as well as its anthropocentricity. In its final part, the thesis will present two alternative, yet complementary legal instruments to a human rights-based approach – namely, environmental law and rights of nature. The former is the traditional way of protecting the environment; the latter will bring forward the concept that we should detach from our anthropocentric approach and apply an approach that is inclusive to natural objects and respectful of their interests. Both will be analysed in the context of the right to a healthy environment. Throughout this thesis, I argue that despite its many flaws, a human right to a healthy environment is necessary for the better protection of the environment in the current legal context. Thus, international recognition thereof can bring about many benefits and negate some of the current flaws of this right, such as the vagueness of its meaning and the lack of uniformity of its regime throughout the globe. From a more general perspective, however, I present the idea of attributing rights to natural objects as a way to have more interests represented, strengthen environmental interests and protection, and apply a more holistic approach to understanding how different actors interact with each other. Finally, I argue that all three legal instruments analysed in this thesis should be used together, in a complementary way, in order to maximise their efficiency and take most out of the benefits they bring about.

PAPER ON HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES ON ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION

All human beings depend on the environment in which we live. A safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment is integral to the full enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water and sanitation. Without a healthy environment, we are unable to fulfill our aspirations or even live at a level commensurate with minimum standards of human dignity. At the same time, protecting human rights helps to protect the environment. When people are able to learn about, and participate in, the decisions that affect them, they can help to ensure that those decisions respect their need for a sustainable environment. Principle I of the Stockholm Declaration stressed that “Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well being, and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations”. In recent years, the recognition of the links between human rights and the environment has greatly increased. The number and scope of international and domestic laws, judicial decisions, and academic studies on the relationship between human rights and the environment have grown rapidly. Many countries now incorporate a right to a healthy environment in their constitutions. Many questions about the relationship of human rights and the environment remain unresolved, however, and require further examination. As a result, in March 2012 the Human Rights Council decided to establish a mandate on human rights and the environment. People more and more started to see that a clean and healthy environment is essential to the realisation of fundamental human rights. Such as the right to life, personal integrity, family life, health and development. Because each human being depends on protecting the environment as the resource base for all life. And where it started with mere linking acknowledged human rights to cases of environmental disruption, like the Bhopal and Chernobyl disasters, it has become more acknowledged over the years that human rights and the environment are so inherently interlinked that (a clean and healthy) Environment is a Human Right. It is important to recognise our dependence on the earth’s natural resources. Natural resources such as air, water, and land are fundamental to all life forms: they are, much more than money and economic infrastructure, the base of our survival.

Human Rights and the Environment: Where Next?

European Journal of International Law, 2012

The relationship between human rights and environmental protection in international law is far from simple or straightforward. A new attempt to codify and develop international law on this subject was initiated by the UNHRC in 2011. What can it say that is new or that develops the existing corpus of human rights law? Three obvious possibilities are explored in this article. First, procedural rights are the most important environmental addition to human rights law since the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. Any attempt to codify the law on human rights and the environment would necessarily have to take this development into account. Secondly, a declaration or protocol could be an appropriate mechanism for articulating in some form the still controversial notion of a right to a decent environment. Thirdly, the difficult issue of extraterritorial application of existing human rights treaties to transboundary pollution and global climate change remains unresolved. The article concludes that the response of human rights law-if it is to have one-needs to be in global terms, treating the global environment and climate as the common concern of humanity.

Identifying Human Rights and the Environment

This entry describes some of the principles underlying environmental human rights and identifies the most common types of environmental claims made. In doing so, it discusses the different types of claims about the environment and human rights, and their legal and philosophical foundations; explores how advocacy organizations and scholars in the environmental social sciences have bridged environmental concerns with human rights; and addresses the topic of intra and inter-generational rights to the environment.

The Scope And Types Of Environmental Human Rights

2017

Environmental human rights (EHRs) have received greater worldwide attention over the years since first recognized by the 1972 Stockholm Declaration. Approximately 100 countries currently recognize and guarantee EHRs within their national constitutions. EHRs have been also used by such diverse groups as academics, social activists, international organizations, political parties, NGOs, etc. EHRs, however, are still a long way from being clear as a concept, or may at best be considered vague. This may be because different scholars have defined EHRs in different ways. In order to broaden and deepen our understanding of EHRs, this conceptual paper will attempt to explain the scope and types of EHRs through a critical analysis of the related literature by addressing the following research questions: (1) What is the scope of environmental human rights? and (2) What types of environmental human rights are there? It concludes with four main types of EHRs, including the right to environment, civil and political rights, and the constitutional and procedural rights that are the rights of individuals to preserve the environment in which they live.

Modern Law and Environmental Problems: a Human Rights Perspective

The study doctrinally examined environmental problems as they relate to human rights and found out that conceptualizing right to healthy environment as integral part of right to life may give a solution to the enforceability of the right. The rising concern for environmental issues makes human right to environment (right to healthy environment) very paramount. Much is needed to be done by human right activists and environmental activists to ensure the sustainability and enforceability of the right.