ABSTRACT
Perhaps understandable for the times, the environment is not specifically mentioned under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948.1 International attention regarding the need for proper management and protection of the environment did not gain momentum until the 1960s, only crystallising itself at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) held at Stockholm in 1972. Since that Conference, however, and in particular, Principle 1 of the Stockholm Declaration2 which specifically recognised the right to a healthy environment for the first time, human rights approaches have permeated various aspects of the discourse on the environment. Interestingly, despite its recent origins, the link between the environment and human rights has ultimately been traced back to the UDHR and the subsequent International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights (ICPCR)3 and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),4 both of which opened for signature on 16 December 1966. This chapter maps these developments, focusing in particular on the three
main issues which have dominated the discourse. These are the right to a healthy environment,5 environmental justice issues dealing with equitable distribution of the causes and impacts of pollution at national and international levels, and the liability of non-state entities such as multinational corporations for human rights abuses related to the environment. These discussions demonstrate the huge steps that have been made in appropriating rights-based approaches to environmental protection. Nevertheless, this chapter questions whether the current focus of environment and human rights discourse on the implications of environmental pollution and degradation on enjoyment of traditional or first generation human rights, presents a full picture of the human rights dimensions of contemporary environmental protection. While environmental pollution has implications for the enjoyment of human rights, do environmental protection laws not also have the potential of encroaching on and even eroding aspects of first generation rights protected under the UDHR? To the extent that this is the case, what, if any, are the implications of the current threat of climate change on further erosion of human rights under the UDHR?
