The General Assembly of the United Nations has recognized the right to a safe and healthy environment for all people

20 August, 2022

Access to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment was declared a fundamental human right by the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday with 161 votes in favor and eight abstentions*.

The resolution was modeled after one passed by the Human Rights Council in 2017 and urges governments, non-governmental organizations, and businesses to do more to guarantee that everyone may live in a safe and healthy environment.

The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, hailed the decision as “historic,” calling it proof that Member States can unite in the fight against climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

In a statement released by his Spokesperson’s Office, he said, “The resolution will help reduce environmental injustices, close protection gaps, and empower people, especially those that are in vulnerable situations, including environmental human rights defenders, children, youth, women, and indigenous peoples.” He continued by saying that the decision would speed up the process by which states carry out their promises and duties related to the environment and human rights.

“This right has been universally recognized by the world community,” he added. “This brings us closer to making it a reality for verybody.”

Nonetheless, Guterres stressed that this ratification of the resolution ‘is merely the beginning’ and asked governments to make this newly recognized right ‘a reality for everyone, everywhere.

As important as it is to proclaim our right to a clean environment today, it is not all that has to be done. The resolution passed by the UN General Assembly is quite clear: all countries must fulfill their international obligations and increase their efforts to make this a reality. If we don’t band together to stop environmental disasters now, “we’ll all be in for a lot more trouble later on,” she said.

Ms. Bachelet said that economic strategies and corporate models ought to be guided by human rights duties, and that this is possible via environmental action.

It places more emphasis on underlying legal duties to act than on purely arbitrary policies. In addition to being more efficient, she argued that it was also more credible and long-lasting.

An international agreement

Over a hundred countries have signed on as co-sponsors to a document that was initially proposed by Costa Rica, the Maldives, Morocco, Slovenia, and Switzerland last June. The document affirms that the right to a healthy environment must be promoted through the full implementation of multilateral environmental agreements.

That environmental damage has negative implications, both direct and indirect, for the effective enjoyment of all human rights is also acknowledged, as are the negative effects of climate change, the unsustainable management and use of natural resources, pollution of air, land, and water, the unsound management of chemicals and waste, and the resulting loss in biodiversity.

Mr. David Boyd, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, has said that the Assembly’s decision would fundamentally alter the character of international human rights law.

He recently spoke to UN News, saying, “Having a right to a healthy environment shifts people’s attitude from ‘begging’ to pressing governments to act.” Governments have made pledges to clean up the environment and handle the climate emergency for decades.

A win five decades in the making

Stockholm’s 1972 UN Conference on the Environment, which concluded with its own historic declaration, was the first to put environmental issues at the forefront of international concerns and to initiate a conversation between developed and developing nations about the connection between economic development, environmental degradation, and human well-being.

Then-UN members said that everyone had an inherent right to “a quality environment that enables a life of dignity and well-being,” and they demanded both immediate action and formal acknowledgement of this right.

It took decades of effort from countries like the Maldives archipelago and more than a thousand civil society organizations, but in October, the Human Rights Council acknowledged this right and asked on the UN General Assembly to do the same.

Since its inception in the Stockholm Declaration in 1972, the right has been incorporated into constitutions, national legislation, and regional accords. Today’s decision lifts the right to where it belongs: universal recognition”, UN Environment Director, Inger Andersen, noted in a statement issued on Thursday.

Although not legally binding (in the sense that nations are under no duty to comply), the acknowledgment of the right to a healthy environment by various UN agencies is anticipated to serve as a spur for change and to provide ordinary people the ability to hold their governments responsible.

Therefore, it is a cause for celebration that this right has now been acknowledged. My appreciation to Member States and to the hundreds of civil society organizations and indigenous peoples’ organisations, and tens of thousands of young people who worked fiercely for this right. But now we must build on this success and execute the right”, Ms. Andersen concluded.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that the newly recognized right is essential to solving the triple global crisis.

This alludes to the three major interconnected environmental dangers facing mankind at the present time, which are climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, all of which are referenced in the resolution itself.

If we want to have a future here on Earth, we need to fix all of these problems, which have their own root causes and knock-on consequences.

Droughts, water shortages, wildfires, rising sea levels, floods, melting polar ice, severe storms, and the loss of biodiversity are only some of the visible effects of climate change.

Meanwhile, the WHO reports that each year over seven million lives are cut short due to air pollution.

Finally, food supply, access to clean water, and life as we know it are all affected by the reduction or extinction of biological variety, which includes animals, plants, and ecosystems.

China, Russia, Belarus, Cambodia, Iran, Syria, Kyrgyzstan, and Ethiopia were among the absentee states.