The Intersection of International Human Rights and Domestic Environmental Regulation (original) (raw)
Related papers
Navigating the Waters: International Law, Environment and Human Rights
PETITA: JURNAL KAJIAN ILMU HUKUM DAN SYARIAH
Over the years, the relationship between the environment and human rights has received global attention. The connection between the individuals, environment and international law is indispensable. However, domestic environmental activities and globalisation set domino effects on climate change where the actions within one jurisdiction affect the environment of neighbouring states. Sovereignty, state obligations and human rights are instruments that can regulate the protection of the environment. Set against this background, this paper will assess the contribution of international law to the protection of the environment, particularly the extent of enforceability of general state obligations through the 'no harm rule.' Arguably, transboundary harm is inevitable in most environmental activities. Therefore, the engaging state is obligated to take measures known as due diligence to regulate the transfer of transboundary harm. The threshold for these environmental activities is s...
Judicial Handbook on Global Environmental Rights
United Nations Environment, 2017
North America is beset by environmental challenges, including air and water pollution, contaminated drinking water, poisoned land, climate change, and the loss of Nature. Here, we consider rights-based approaches to environmental challenges – that is, ways of framing the legal interests implicated in environmental harms as violations of human and constitutional rights. This introduction aims to orient environmental rights by explaining what they are, what they aren’t, and what issues arise in invoking or enforcing them, including a foretaste of the unique vulnerabilities of those who defend environmental human rights. In much of the world, threats against environmental human rights defenders take the form of violence, whereas in North America, efforts to silence and squelch the protection of environmental human rights is done through the courts
Editorial: The legitimacy of human rights courts in environmental disputes
Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 2015
The legitimacy of human rights courts in environmental disputes Recent years have seen an increasing recognition of the strong interconnection between human rights and environmental protection. A growing number of disputes adjudicated in regional human rights courts now deal with environmental aspects of human rights claims and, consequently, a growing body of human rights-related jurisprudence is emerging with direct legal relevance for environmental protection. While this is a welcome, necessary and fascinating development, it raises a number of questions concerning the legitimacy of human rights courts in dealing with environmental issues, most prominent among them whether human rights courts are even the right venue for environmental disputes. On 8 and 9 September 2014, PluriCourts (the Centre of Excellence at the Faculty of Law of the University of Oslo) invited renowned scholars, young academics and judges to exchange views on the legitimacy of adjudication of environmental cases in human rights tribunals. Among the participants were Helen Keller (Judge, European Court of Human Rights), Margarette May Macaulay (former Judge, Inter-American Court of Human Rights), Justice Hansine Donli (former President ECOWAS), Professor Dinah Shelton (George Washington University) and Professor Alan Boyle (University of Edinburgh). The articles in this edition of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment are predominantly drawn from papers presented at the PluriCourts conference and offer contributions to the ongoing engagement with the theme at its heart. Established in 2013, PluriCourts is a Centre dedicated to the study of the legitimate role/s of the judiciary in the global order. PluriCourts examines such questions as the legitimacy of international courts, from legal, political science and philosophical perspectives, as well as researching and reflecting upon the functioning of International Courts, and their effects. To address its research agenda, PluriCourts focuses on five sectors of international law, namely Human Rights, Trade, Criminal, Investment and Environmental Law. ENVIRONMENTAL SECTOR When it comes to international environmental law the global juridical order places the subject in a very particular position: there are no special international environmental courts exercising jurisdiction over the (by now) hundredsif not thousandsof multilateral treaties that deal with environmental protection. What exist are, on the one hand, so-called non-compliance or review mechanisms and procedures with judicial features under multilateral environmental treaty regimes. These mechanisms deal with issues of non-compliance through facilitative approaches by providing transparency, financial and technological assistance and capacity-building rather than sanctions. Examples include the Compliance Committees under the Kyoto Protocol and the Aarhus Convention on Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.
ACDI - Anuario Colombiano de Derecho Internacional, 2019
This article analyses the recent Advisory Opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Environment and Human Rights and argues that it constitutes a milestone effectively reorientating international environmental law. The article is divided as follows. First, it analyses the most salient aspects of the Advisory Opinion inter alia (1) The right to a healthy environment as binding lawand;(2) The Advisory Opinion as a landmark in the gradual development of international jurisprudence on cross-border (or “diagonal”) human rights obligations (i.e. the possibil-ity for human rights claims to be brought by individuals not under the territorial jurisdiction of the State whose international responsibility for environmental harm is invoked). Second, it contextualizes the Advisory Opinion by discussing what we consider to be four key vectors currently affecting the trajectory of the ongoing development of international en-vironmental law and how the advances made in the Advisory Opinion fit with those developments. Third, it places the Advisory Opinion in the wider context of developments moving towards a needed reorientation in international environmental law, in particular: integration (or de-fragmentation) of international law, the operationalization of environmental principles into working-level legal norms, and a focus on practical remedies. It is argued that as the world experiences the pressure for more effective environmental law and accountability, some of the most sophisticated and innovative thinking on international environmental law today, is emanating from countries in the Southern hemisphere, as attested to by the Advisory Opinion.
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.
Environmental Human Rights Jurisprudence at the Inter-American & European Systems of Human Rights.
In the international law, despite the existence of several environmental treaties, none of them give the possibility for individual complains arguing a violation of the right to environment. Paradoxically, some regional human rights systems, though they do not consider the right to a clean or adequate environment as a human right or as an enforceable right through the complaint systems, the allegation of procedural rights (information, participation or access to justice) has opened the door to international complaints. The present paper analyzes the role of the Inter-American Human Rights System and the European Human Rights System in responding to this human challenge, through a revision of its case law and jurisprudence. In the conclusion, the paper tries to examine what are some of the inherent values protected by each system, its similarities and differences.
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.
Access to Justice on Environmental Matters: Extraterritorial Enforcement of Environmental Rights.
Environmental Law & Management 31(4):151, 2019
The impact of environmental pollution and degradation cannot always be contained within the physical territory of a state; therefore, people living in neighbouring states are prone to suffer the brunt of such environmental catastrophes. Victims of these environmental cataclysms are rendered helpless owing to several principles of international law that restrain individuals from instituting actions on extraterritorial issues. Despite the unprecedented development of international environmental law and the emergence of environmental human rights in the 21st century, little attention has been paid to the extraterritorial implication of environmental pollution, as well as how victims of such environmental pollution can seek adequate remedy and compensation. The application of existing human rights treaties on extraterritorial environmental matters is nebulous and contentious. Interestingly, there are some growing developments in international law on this issue. This article will consider these developments and several other relevant issues.
Iucn Academy of Environmental Law E Journal, 2011
This essay provides an overview of the worldwide phenomenon of constitutional environmental rights. Since the Stockholm Convention, nearly 60 countries have constitutionally entrenched environmental rights, according their citizens basic rights to environmental quality in one form or another. The list is diverse politically, including countries with civil, common law, Islamic, and other traditions. Some of the more recent of these include Kenya in 2010, Ecuador in 2007, France in 2005, Afghanistan in 2004, and South Africa in 1996. As a result, domestic courts and international tribunals are enforcing constitutionally enshrined environmental rights with growing frequency, reflecting basic human rights to clean water, air, land, and environmental opportunity. Courts have even read environmental rights into constitutions that do not explicitly mention them or where judicial enforcement has been nominally withdrawn. Courts in Southern Asia have led the way, inferring environmental rights from other constitutionally entrenched rights, most commonly a “right to life.” This trend has been most notable in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal where such rights have been read in tandem with directive principles aimed at promoting environmental policy to embody substantive environmental rights. As we shall see, constitutionally embedded rights are both fairly ubiquitous in form, and fairly challenging in function.
Direito Internacional em Expansão, 2023
This article examines the role of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and its potential contribution to the development of international environmental law. We argue that the Court acts as both a recipient and catalyst of new developments in international law, engaging in cross-fertilization with other international tribunals. We herein emphasize the Court’s recognition of the nexus between human rights and environmental protection, the establishment of a justiciable and autonomous right to a healthy environment, the significance of consent from traditional communities and participatory environmental decision-making, and the expansive interpretation of procedural environmental rights and legal remedies. Our findings suggest that insights from the Court can contribute significantly to the advancement of international environmental law, paving the way for enhanced protection, respect, and fulfillment of human rights in the context of environmental challenges.