ABSTRACT
Environmental human rights are rights to (the fair distribution of, or fair access to) natural resources and/or rights to (the fair distribution of, or fair protection against) nature-related nuisance. In brief, environmental human rights are rights to nature. Such rights have an origin in what is called original acquisition and original ownership.
In this chapter, I distinguish two ideal-typical theories of original ownership and acquisition: an ‘orthodox’ perception associated with right-libertarianism and classical liberalism that understands nature as ‘unowned’ before individual appropriation, and a ‘lenient’ tradition which interprets nature as a common asset of humanity. The latter is characteristic of social liberalism and left-libertarianism.
Common asset theories are and remain indifferent towards nature and are biased towards its exploitation for the benefit of humanity. Surprisingly, ‘orthodoxy’ seems to be greener: it can, at least in principle, impose limits on original acquisition and make room for the non-appropriation of nature, for non-consumption and non-destruction.
This seems to suggest that what is good for nature (per se) is bad for the environment (nature as resources), therefore also for environmental human rights, and vice versa, what is good for humans is bad for nature. Yet I will argue that in fact, an orthodox conception of original non-ownership is a necessary condition for any legitimate theory of environmental human rights, precisely because it is a safeguard against short-sightedness.
