Human rights empower people to develop freely, on that basis, the environment plays a key role in human growth.

Humans beings can not develop fully unless it has adequate protection to the environment.

Humans are development actors, individually and collectively, being the environment, repeat, the territory where such growth takes place.

The United Nations created in 1986 the Declaration on the Right to Development.

The link is as follows http://www.un.org/en/events/righttodevelopment/declaration.shtml

I agree with you Jorge but the problem is with the understanding of environmental rights which has still to get an status equal to the human rights!

Let me clear it by an example- If suppose I slaps a person without a reason, I will be caught for a wrong done against him as he has the right 'not to get slapped'. Similarly every person has the right 'not to become a captive listener' but he is exposed to high sounds daily by every means or other and in a similar way, every human being's birthright of freedom and clean environment is put to challenge on a daily basis everywhere in the globe. My question was only in this context as can environmental rights be complied to a 'concrete human right' ever!

I completely agree with the approach you take.

The problem of the collision of human rights is complicated.

Currently, we constantly have situations in which the individual human development is hindered by the actions of others. Much remains to be done to solve this problem.

Human rights are rights that come with your birthright, and it is for this reason that some countries challenge what they see has inhuman treatment, because most countries have incorporated into their laws and customs rules pertaining to how citizens are to be treated.

Economic, social, and environmental protection is included in those given rights, if not written into the law. People must have clean water, clean air, and a right to a sustainable existence. I think this was the purpose of the UN Rio/20 conference in Jun or Jul of this year - you might what to check the UN web site.

My answer to your question would be that you cannot attempt to provide economic well being and some quality of life without protecting them from the insidious effects of contamination - for instance the Russian nuclear power plant that melted, resulting in 10,000 years of wasted land and the 1,000's of lives, would indicate a human rights abuse, just as the Love Channel in New York State which created 100's of cases of cancer in children, and condemned an entire area of a small city for 1,000 years due to hazardous waste under the homes is certainly a human rights violation. You cannot insist on legal protections, food, health, etc., and then be permitted to poison people through government malfeasance.

Sir Coston, my reply holds an element of objection re your response. Human rights are indeed the birthright of an individual but the environmental rights are the pre-birth rights! In the Mother's womb, the nature provides a well organised environment to a human being first where he is having no air, food or water which becomes his super right immediately by the moment he comes to this world. But the environmentalism inherent in his nature is inseparable that shapes his inner-self as well as his existence of being a human! The surprising thing is that our compliance mechanism as well as our intellectual guys insists on talking only of those rights that are post birth ignoring the important aspect of environmentalism that is but woven inside a human being's basic nature.

You assume, incorrectly I thinik, that environmental issues are always the fault of the government or a persons personal space - many environmental issues are not of man's making, and many of those cannot be mitigated nor corrected. A volcano erupts and poisons the air and the land - people must be moved or habituated in places that they choose not to be. When the Chinese dammed the river and forced people out of ancestral homes and into huge apartments and polluted air, it was an action that falls under your definition, however when Mt. Saint Helens exploded and spewed ash and lava into the Washington State and surrounding areas it was a form of environmental damage that man had no control over, and although the people were entitled to breath clean air and live in uncontaminated spaces, there was nothing that could be done. Floods, tornados, hurricanes - an act of God, unless man makes it worse, it is not a environmental right that comes from the womb.

it is a more interconnected issue... environmental rights go also in favor of animal rights because human and animal beings need basic natural sources for life.. what to o with my body if I have no means for upholding it, to rest, to live and use the goods given by nature to every human being. it is vice versa- if the environment is destructed it affects everyone else..

Human beings have natural rights, whether or not recognized in the supreme standards of each country.

Admittedly, environmental, not all evil is caused by the act of the people, however we must consider that, on the issue that is being considered, it comes to finding precisely the possibility that the subject itself can act in defense of those rights.

I agree with the arguments of Sahab. Describes the difficulty of defending and implementing environmental rights against people carrying out the violation of them, even to the detriment of individuals who are in the womb (of all living beings express Aida).

Reiterate the above, there is still much to be done to solve this problem.

Act of God is but a mere lame excuse. It thus should not be made a pith & substance of a discussion if the environmental issues are being talked in wider senses.

The eruption of a volcano or a roadside accident too have a liability where the Government is a party and which is known as strict liability against a vicarious liability in the legal parlance. It is thus the responsibility of the Government to monitor the volcano before it comes or to maintain the road safety measures before something wrong happens. The environment rights is a human being's inherent rights, something more than the known human rights. I agree with Aida that it is a natural right that all the living being shares equally on earth and with Jorge that the subject itself can defend the human rights too and with all those who recognizes the environmental rights as more a concrete human rights, running parallel to the food, shelter and right to cloth.

And if Sir Coston is so fond of taking the discussion to a social end, let me ask the Government's failure in recognizing the Gay rights worldwide!

Well, Professor Antonio Augusto Cançado Trindade, now judge at The Hague, has related II Human Rights Conference of Wien, where environmental has been treated as a human right.

I have no idea what the UN thinks about this issue: I am interested in what YOU, Sahab, think of this issue since you, not the UN, ask this significant question. The question, though, needs clarification: what interest do you seek to protect? Another way of saying this is, what does your concept of "environmental right" in your question encompass? For example, is it a "right" for flora and fauna to live out their lives in a manner that is unaffected by human contact?; is it a "right" of a human to use flora and fauna and inanimate resources to improve his or her economic and social situation in as unimpeded manner as possible; is it a "right" of a human to use the environment in pursuit of his or her economic and social activities as (s)he sees see fit provided that his or her use does not unreasonably interfere with the ability of another human to use the environment in pursuit of his or her own economic and social activities; is it something else?

Yes environmental rights can be considered as such because they are connected to rights to health, life and livelihood.

Dear Babak,

If you are addressing my comment, please understand that I am trying to focus Sahab's attention to what exactly he means by an "environmental right;" what interest he contemplates protecting when he uses that phrase. As it is now, it is very well prone to many meanings and understandings.

It appears from your note that you are inclined to articulate "environmental rights" as a species of "right" that benefits humans only. What is the interest you seek to protect when articulating "environmental rights" in the context of a "human right"? I provide two in my initial comment above; there are additional ones. Also, are you asserting that "environmental rights" do not extend to flora and fauna?

Well, I think the question is, indeed, important, but, for me, it is more important to know what does UN think of environment, for such a conception shall be the one to be worked in the living world.

Fair enough: how does the UN define "environmental right;" and what interest does it seek to protect?

But that said, the question to Sahab remains since he asks a legitimate question and I am trying to understand how he frames the issue he is considering.

Dear Charles,

Do Flora and Fauna have rights? We can attribute them rights but this does not contradict with the fact that also humans have rights. Right to life is a human life but we can also extend it to animals. No contradictions.

Hi, Babak, the question remains: what is the interest Sahab seeks to protect and from whence does it arise? We need to hear directly from Sahab.

Interestingly, your question to me parallels a question that former U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas asked: "Do trees have standing?" In American federal law, flora and fauna do have limited standing, in a way, under the Endangered Species Act, legislation intended to protect plants and animals from extinction. Thus, plants and animals are valued for themselves and not for their value to humans (although I cannot eliminate the thought that the ESA was enacted to ensure continued viability of gene pools that someday could be exploited to benefit humanity).

In terms of interests sought to be protected, there IS a difference between protection of non-human life for itself and protection of that life insofar as its preservation benefits humans. This clearly is brought out whenever human economic development proposals impinge upon wildlife habitats or whenever humans harvest fish from an area to the point of species extinction: should the species be allowed to survive (which means that it must be given the time to recover its populaiton), with the consequence that the fishermen must seek an alternate protein source for their families; or, should the fish population be allowed to collapse, with the consequential throwing off of the foodweb in that ecological region and forcing the fishermen to seek alternate employment, anyway?

Not an easy question to answer; and that is why Sahab needs to address the question I pose. From there, discussion helpful to him could flow. But, we need to hear from him.

well What Charles is trying to say is should fast and easy development be preferred above sustainable development?

Enviroment protection is surely connected with HR in my opinion, but it is also promoted separate, like almost every of human right which is considered as HR and as right, which comes from particular regulation of civil code/criminal code/ verdicts etc.

Enviromental right is quasi mentioned in International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (New York, 16 December 1966), but it is needed to derivate articles not only as powers to use natural resources, but also as obligation to respect them, and treat as the common good, also in the future

Check out conference which I'm organising, maybe that topic would be interesting part of it or a chapter of publication :) >>> btw I'm inviting to Poland ;)

http://ihrc.edu.pl/

Charles and all able Scholars,

The gist of mine question is just pointing towards the gravity that is attached to the basic human rights and the punitive adjustments for it that indeed varies but targets for the common outcome!

Lets make it more easy to understand by an example.

E.g- The murder is an act that attracts for highest punishment of the land as the accused bereaves the victim from his basic right to live his life. So am I here asking that if some one or say a corporate house or even Governments acts something in furtherance of whom a people is bereaved from their environmental rights, would then the deserving comeuppance akin to a punitive measure appear in the scene?

And I think if it is not, then the environmental rights are still to assume the actual recognition making it tough to run parallel to the human rights!

human rights are an over-arching concept. Having said that, the theoretical constructs for environmental rights could be explained through the concept of trust, and any infringement of the trust could be seen as a violation of collective rights. we can look at punishment beyond the traditional idea of a sanction that is visited with physical harm. There is, as Charles says, even an understanding of limitations on human activity in consequence of what can be loosely described as animal rights. I understand that articulation of environment rights needs to be addressed from the idea of trust rather than looking at the differences in the methodology of protection

http://www.righttoenvironment.org/default.asp?pid=87

The concept of 'environmental rights' is a difficult one to grasp unless it is interpreted in a human rights context. Any right must be exercised in a sentient world, is the environment aware of its rights and if so does it have any attendant responsibilities? In a human rights sense we can be said to have responsibilities to the environment which may translate into rights of people living there.

A second consideration must be which environment are we talking about. Some are aesthetically pleasing some productive, how do we place a value on those rights. Human rights come in two main varieties, inalienable and qualified. How do we apply those to the environment? Where and when would it be ethically acceptable to interfere with the environment and not so?

Hi Barry, I am addressing the second part of your post. The issue raised by you is largely answered in the current understanding of human environment and the place of man in the bio-diversity. We are seeing new areas of rights being created like fishing rights of some states and the marine sustainability rights of the contiguous coastal states. I feel there is an inalienable right to sustained environment and economic right to exploitation of resources that is qualified. As an example I can place the right to bottom fishing under the UNCLOS.

Agreeing with what someone said earlier, this question is a bit tricky. While I agree with the eco-centric as against the anthropocentric position on human and environmental rights, there are still some questions I think are pertinent to be able to properly situate arguments in this discourse. One of such is that generally, rights go along with duty. So, if the environment is accorded rights in itself, then what corresponding duties do we expect from the environment in itself?

Muhammed, rights, especially as entitlements against the State, has moved beyond the co-relative duty. There is a right to liberty, not just because the State can exact a correlative duty from the holder of liberty. This is not to lessen the

Importance of correlatives, but to ensure that the sanctity of rights remains despite the correlatives being of equal value or not. Environment rights are seen from this perspective in India. For example, in India now, there is a 45 day closure of fishing on the eastern coastal region for marine refurbishing and environment reasons. Not ensuring compliance with this activity could be challenged by any individual as violation of the obligation of the State to ensure preservation of marine environment. Here is an example of environmental obligations on the State.

Thanks Prof. Garimella, I think I appreciate the point you tried to make, and its enlightening.

What I find interesting about this whole discussion, is that as far as I can see, no-one has mentioned the European Court of Human Rights, or explored the extent to which the European Convention on Human Rights recognises the nebulous concept of environmental rights - I'm talking here of a human right to a healthy environment, rather than the rights which may or may not attach to flora and fauna.

Firstly, let's tee up the legislative side. Neither the UDHR or the ECHR expressly recognise any human right to the environment.

However, the ECtHR has recognised that such a right might have an impact in some cases - I'll give a (very brief) summary of the ones I have encountered.

Powell & Rayner v UK (9310/01) 1990. Noise from Heathrow airport not a violation of Art 8 ECHR (right to a private and family life).

Hatton v UK (36022/97) 2003. Noise from Heathrow airport night-flights not a violation of Art 8.

Moreno Gomez v Spain (4143/02) 2004. Night-time noise from nightclubs was excessive, and was a breach of Art 8.

Dees v Hungary (2345/06) 2010. Noise from unregulated heavy traffic was a violation of Art 8.

(see also Mileva & Others v Bulgaria; Dubetska & others v Ukraine; Zammit Maempel & others v Malta; Miroslawa & Janusz Pawlak v Poland; Martinez & Manzano v Spain; and Zeynettin Oto v Turkey, all of which invoke Article 8 in relation to noise pollution)

Noise pollution has provided the bulk of cases referred to the ECtHR that can be linked to "environmental rights" but there are also cases on industrial pollution (Oneryildiz v Turkey (2004), Lopez Ostra v Spain (1994), Fadeyeva v Russia 92005), Giacomelli v Italy (2006), Guerra v Italy (1998), Taskin v Turney (2004) which again mainly invoke Article 8. Oneryildiz is the exception, where the court found a break of Article 2 (right to life).

The closest the court has yet come to recognising environmental rights was in Hamer v Belgium (21861/03) 2007, where the court said (para 79) "Financial imperatives and even certain fundamental rights, such as ownership, should not be afforded priority over environmental protection considerations, in particular when the state has legislated in this regard."

So, in direct answer to Sahab's question, I would have to say no, not yet, but change is slowly coming,

I agree with you Kato, although both the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Developoment and the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development are soft law and more aspirational in nature - they cannot be enforced by anyone against anyone, and flouting their terms brings no sanction.

Unfortunately it is much easier to get States to recognise concepts and ideas when they know they won't ever have to stand by them. The hard step for pressure groups, lawyers, the UN, and sovereign states to take (and I believe it is a step they/we must take) is to incorporate these concepts into some form of universally agreed, measurable, enforceable system.

Until that day, we are going to be left discussing "should environmental rights be considered human rights" (to which most people would say yes, either wholeheartedly or cautiously), and not the tougher question of "how do we ensure that environmental rights are considered human rights"

Yes environmental rights should be equivalent with human rights.

As a Native, the land belongs not to us, but to the generations that will come after us.

Thus the rights of the land extend 'unto the 7th generation' and environmental impacts should consider the rights of humans that depend on the land after we are gone. The two are directly linked.

The sovereign tribes of the U.S. and Canada have signed an international treaty to try and preserve the land for the generations that will follow us.

By protecting the rights of the land today, we are protecting the rights of our children and grandchildren after us.

If we see the right to environment as a legal way to guarantee a certain level of protection of other rights -life, health,...- through regulations, policies, prohibitons, management, etc... there's no doubt that there a right to environment and it may make sense to consider it a "human right". >But too often the discussions about human rights become nominalistic. But legal talk on this issue has some shortcoming: First, it´s based on the pressumption that the state can do everything through law and bureuacray, which is not the case. Sencondly, since our life -as human species and as individuals- is embeddded in the environment, is does not make sense to talk about the environment as something detached from us. There is no such thing as degradation the environment or depletion of resources from the perspective of the environmente; the environment does know about itself, doesn´t properly suffer, so it doesn´t make sense to talk about the rights of fauna or whatsover. The need to preserve the environment is human need since our conscious of our dependence from it. None can speak in the name of nature or the envronment. The fact is that from our environmentalist concerns we all contribute to the depletion and degradation of the envorinment and it's something that cannot do individually. The problem is that production and consumption -which is the way we interact with the environment- are becoming more and more synconised throughout the world and, as H. Arendt said, society is becoming subsumed in the vital process. These two features increase the difficulty to change our individual behaviour regarding the environment and make our moves within the system more constrained.

To make it short: paradoxically, state or global actors will be unable to do anything significant for the environment. Action must take place and emerge from the local and the Law has little to do with it. It´s about local politics.

I agree. The environment (in its non-human format) has no coherent concept of the future, or of degradation, and lacks the ability to do anything to prevent the latter.

Humans have to act in a paternalistic way towards the rest of the environment, as it needs protecting from us - ironically, one of the predominant views of 17th and 18th century Europe was that we humans needed protecting from the environment, which was a wild, untamed state of affairs.

To answer the point made by Charles Laster, I agree, environmental rights and human rights should be regarded as the same in many cases, but "should" and "are" remain streets apart.

I also have an issue (which I would welcome some conversation about) with regard to future generations. If "a generation" (and by that everyone seems to mean human generation (does this mean we don't owe any sort of duty of care to future generations of other mammals, reptiles etc?)) is about 20-25 years, then how far are we looking into the future?

If we are indeed thinking 7 generations into the future, then we are looking at 140-175 years time. If we flip it, and look 140-175 years back, then we are in the heart of the mid 19th century Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions. OK then.

Did Isambard Kingdom Brunel consider my needs when he built the railway network in the UK? Probably not.

If he had, would he have considered that what he was doing would be to my benefit? Probably.

Would he have been right in that assumption? That's a whole different debate.

Can we say, with any clarity whatsoever, what the humans living in the mid to late 22nd Century will thank us for? Should we cease all fossil fuel consumption immediately, or should we use it up as fast as possible, forcing science to find an alternative as quickly as possible?

What does ResearchGate think?

I look at Maldives as an example to consider at environmental rights as part of the human rights regime. A minor change in the climate could mean a loss of few islands in this country forever, thus affecting the most sacrosant right of all, the right to life. This example goes to show that environmental rights cannot be categorized either as soft rights or by any other nomenclature, except as a part of the human rights paradigm. Classifying them seperately might be an advantage in some countries as it might merit exclusive attention and concern, but in the majority of countries keeping in mind the State practice of extreme callousness, it can only be detrimental for the environmental rights. The second scenario is a reality in most of the developing world, especially because States tend to relegate these rights to minor value citing economic concerns amongst others. For example, the dangerous practice of ship-breaking thrives as an industry in the South Asian region, despite many other countries prohibiting it for environmental concerns. Similarly climate change and over-fishing has caused a substantial depletion and loss of marine life, on the eastern coast in India, bordering Bangladesh. Environmental concerns can be addressed only when they are seen as human rights, not as an extension of human rights.

I've heard environmental issues referred to as 'third generation' human rights...

Hi Sahab,

There is no question that potable water and clean air are human rights. No one knows this better than the multinational corporations (MNCs) that are putting these human rights in jeopardy as they move their operations offshore to less developed nations without strict environmental laws. The culpability of these MNCs is illustrated by their willingness to enter into out-of-court settlements of the environmental degradation lawsuits brought against them. Read about the $15.5 billion settlement of Shell Oil in connection with polluting the homelands of the Ogoni peoples in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria (Shell was also a co-conspirator in the deaths by hanging of Ogoni tribesmen for protesting the devastation of their homelands by Shell):

http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/faqs/factsheet%3A-case-against-shell-0

Also, you may find of interest 3 of my articles on RG:

“GLOBAL POLLUTERS and TRANSNATIONAL WATCHDOGS: The Long-Arm Jurisdiction of Moral Sentiment”;

“GLOBAL ACCOUNTABILITY: MNCs, NGOs, and the Alien Tort Claims Act”; and

“NOT JUST HOT AIR: Global Warming Solidifies World Opinion”.

Gwen

Hi Gwendolyn,

There is certainly no question that potable water and clear air should be rights, but are they?

Not under the ECHR, the International Bill of Human Rights, or any of the optional protocols. In the OHCHR 2012 document on Human Rights Indicators (http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/HRIndicators/AGuideMeasurementImplementationCompleteGuide_en.pdf.pdf) the words "water" and "clean air" do appear, so there is some hope fo rthe future.

The failure of the Alien Tort Claims Act in the Kiobel case last year makes me worry that out-of-court settlments are going to be the only thing we ever see.

The problem we have in this area is the falsification of data. It is well known that the landmark book on DDT was full of error, but was marketed and accepted by use of emotionalism. Stopping the use of DDT has harmed third-world nations (disease). We need to separate those types of "studies" from the known problems such as the (was it cholera?) epidemic in Haiti from African volunteers who camped upstream of villages and polluted the water supply with their body waste full of the microbes. On the other hand, the damage done to the Imperial Valley, CA, by the ridiculous "saving of the microscopic fish" by turning off the water to farms and ruining the economy and livelihood of families definitely should be addressed as their human right. Also, coal production (clean) and oil production are human rights--jobs, products we use everyday, etc. The research should go both ways and should be honest, all-encompassing, and forthright. People have lost faith in environmental research due to the debacle over so-called "global warming." and the purposeful falsification of research plus the conspiracy to keep the truth/disagreement research articles out of publications and universities.

If we are to consider and environment to have 'rights' it must mean that one environment has a superior right over another another and that a natural environment has more 'rights' than a human made one. This is of course an absurdity.

The environment in the Carboniferous was very different to that of today, the environment of the Pre-Cambrian different to both. We would consider it ridiculous that the environmental differences of one epoch over another could be measured in terms of superiority

Environmental rights seems to encompass an idea that the current environment must be protected at the expense of human progress. Just as environments changed in prehistory they change today and humans are as much a part of this environment as arthropods were in the Pre-Cambrian and insects in the Carboniferous. Humans have a right to alter the environment to suit human comfort.

That does not have to mean destroying wantonly but it is not morally unsustainable that the Earth and its environments should be exploited. Single celled organisms did far more 'damage' to Earth than humans ever could, releasing one of the most toxic and corrosive chemicals ever discovered. Microfauna covered vast areas of the surface of the planet with their waste in the form of chalk. Even today animals destroy environments.

Parting with a question, do elephants have a right to destroy forests and rabbits to strip entire micro-environments?

Barry,

You sounds as 'do not the animals too be allowed to enjoy the same kind of rights which the humans do have, instead of cooked up codified animal rights'!

The 'exploitation' by the beings other than humans are not as destructive as the unruly human practices to their environment are, as the human's 'exploitative' practices have started much later than their emergence, much contrary to the animal kingdom whose entire existence owes to their practices of exploiting the nature from the time they got appeared on the earth.

I am pretty sure the acid rain, at least is, but a pure human interference in the smooth functioning of the mother nature.

Sahab

Quite right, we humans are the second most destructive entity on the planet after 'mother nature' herself. We have in recent decades got into a somewhat silly habit of blaming humans for destroying nature as if it was as simple as a species deliberately destroying its environment. We humans are part of 'mother nature' and mother nature is quite as nasty to us as we are to her. Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Malaria to name but a few of her nasty habits. The Roman Empire may have caused a lot of trouble in its time but it certainly did not cause the eruption of Mt Vesuvius.

As a species we anthropomorphise everything, even the planet itself. We are however not destroying it anymore than bacteria did when they polluted the atmosphere of the early earth with oxygen. The Earth is far more resilient than we are and mother nature will be around for a long time to mourn one of her unruliest of children when we vanish from it.

I feel that you may find your answer if you ask yourself a few fundamental questions ( a few of which have already been raised here). First, you may want to understand why you are advocating for environmental rights as human rights. Does this question come up because you are arguing that nature is intrinsically valuable or because human beings need nature to survive and hence we need to protect it. Second, to what extent can any legal institution provide rights for nature? Can we really run away from the problem of anthropocentric thought that Bernard Williams raises? Finally, what are the various kinds of connections between the way we look at nature and the approaches we take towards sustainability? 

Overall, I think that this question will benefit from David Harvey's work on environmental justice.  Also, you should take a look at the Constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia that have incorporated rights for nature. You may find some leads in these works.