Environmental Rights

In a global era, environmental rights are linked with human rights. Concerns over environmental degradation have been combined with existing international legal frameworks regarding human rights. The basic argument is that the preservation and sustainable use of environmental resources are a necessary foundation for the enjoyment of other officially recognized human rights, including the right to life, liberty, and security. For example, the right to food, water, and shelter can be considered environmental aspects of human rights and should be recognized globally, environmental rights advocates have argued. Other aspects of environmental rights include the right to know about the dumping of pollution or hazardous waste that might harm one's liberty or life.

Much of the attention to environmental rights has developed subsequent to the adoption by the United Nations in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which in its 30 articles includes rights related to security, the right to freedom of expression, and the right to participation. Related covenants organized by the United Nations and adopted in 1976 include the International [Page 502]Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, both of which have applicability to environmental rights inasmuch as the pursuit of a clean, livable environment can be considered an expression of social or economic rights. Other international treaties and conventions since this time have also referred to environmental rights, such as the principles of the Rio Declaration, adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit, as well as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has not been amended to include an explicit focus on environmental rights, although there have been campaigns for it to be incorporated in the future.

These moves to better define and defend environmental rights have increased since the early 1990s. In part, the efforts have been supported by a groundswell of communities protesting against dams, mining, toxic waste dumps, and other environmental damages in local areas across the world. Some well-known environmental activists have been killed trying to exercise their rights to a healthy environment, including rubber tapper activist Chico Mendes in Brazil and Nigerian activist against Shell Oil Ken Saro-Wiwa. The attacks on environmental activists globally have resulted in international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International joining with environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club to jointly issue appeals for environmental rights.

In 1994, a special rapporteur on human rights and the environment conducted a study for the United Nations on this issue, arguing that environmental damage should be recognized as a fundamental violation of human rights, and subsequently prepared a “Draft Declaration of Principles Regarding Human Rights and the Environment” for the UN Human Rights Commission. The principles argued in part that “human rights, an ecologically sound environment, sustainable development and peace are interdependent and indivisible” and that “all persons have the right to a secure, healthy and ecologically sound environment. This right and other human rights, including civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, are universal, interdependent and indivisible” (United Nations, 1994, Principles 1 and 2). The declaration also noted the need for intergenerational equity. The draft principles have not, however, been passed by the General Assembly, primarily due to opposition from the United States, and they continue to be nonbinding legally. Other countries have taken it on themselves to move faster to recognize environmental rights than the UN system; for example, the right to water has been included as a human right in the constitution of South Africa.

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