by Irene Antonopoulos, Jean-Pierre Gauci, Victoria Lichet, Dina Lupin, Maria-Antonia Tigre, Natalia Urzola, Constantinos Yiallourides
Feature Image: ‘Monsoon’ by Jonah Sack
Published in Environmental Rights Review 1(1) 2023 pp1-4
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Reflections on the Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment
I. Introduction
It is with great excitement that we find ourselves writing the editorial of the first volume of the new Environmental Rights Review, an open-access, online journal hosted by the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment.
By establishing the Review, we aim to provide a space for scholars and practitioners to write and engage with cutting-edge research on the urgent topic of environmental rights, where interdisciplinary approaches address practical applications, and where ideas can be presented discursively with opportunities for responses, discussion and evolution. The Review is a forum for engaging, changing, critical discussions of environmental rights seen broadly, encompassing a wide array of interconnecting issues and questions, including the interests of the non-human world.
In achieving this primary goal, we see the need for a journal that is interactive, where ideas can be developed, engaged with, and allowed to evolve and grow. The Review is experimental and adventurous. It creates opportunities for publishing new kinds of research, but also for interrogating and reinventing practices of environmental rights publishing. The Review is not just a journal. It is also a workshop space, where we can revisit and experiment with old ideas and practices, and develop new approaches and methods.
A key aim of the Review is to address the lack of scholarly space and attention sometimes given to Global South, Indigenous, LGBTQQIP2SAA, and junior scholars in environmental rights publishing and to ensure greater access to environmental rights scholarship. For this reason, the Review is entirely free and its editors are committed to finding new and innovative ways to ensure accessibility, especially for those without easy access to formal academic resources.
The first issue of the Review is dedicated to the Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment. This issue reflects on the long journey of this right from initial proposals to its official recognition by the United Nations General Assembly in a resolution in July 2022. The resolution recognizes that environmental degradation is a threat to present and future generations. Despite its non-binding status, the resolution is expected to influence the 193 United Nations Member States in creating national laws and policies reflecting the concerns of the General Assembly.
To date, more than 150 States recognize the right to an environment of quality. Regional systems have also started incorporating this right in their legally binding instruments. Since the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment of 1972 (Stockholm Declaration), the rapid deterioration of the natural environment, coupled with the similarly rapid recognition of the interrelationship between human rights and the environment in national systems, have highlighted the need for legal responses to this crisis. The recognition of a Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment is a critical step towards achieving a framework that will protect against the human rights violations caused by the deterioration of the environment.
II. Chronology of the Development and Recognition of the Right to a Healthy Environment
Legal recognition of the right to a healthy environment is happening at domestic, regional, and international levels. As mentioned, over 150 States already recognize the right to a healthy environment in their domestic legal frameworks.[1] Regional treaties and instruments have also acknowledged the importance of recognizing an autonomous right to a healthy environment, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights;[2] the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention); the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Protocol of San Salvador); the Arab Charter on Human Rights; and the recently adopted Escazú Agreement.[3] Regional courts, such as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, have also started giving content to the right to a healthy environment.[4] National case law is also providing for creative interpretations of human rights to reflect on the severe consequences and risks a degrading environment presents to the enjoyment of human rights.
At the international level, the last years have been a turning point towards a broader and more explicit recognition of the right to a healthy environment. In October 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution which recognized the human right to a safe, healthy, and sustainable environment for all.[5] Furthermore, in July 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a similar resolution, calling upon States, international organizations, businesses, and other stakeholders to advance towards ensuring a healthy environment for all.[6] The international recognition of the right to a healthy environment is key in advancing domestic environmental law and policy and improving its implementation through enforcement, public participation, and addressing environmental injustices.[7]
III. The First Issue
The first issue is dedicated to the Right to a Healthy Environment and its protection. Monica Visalam Iyer discusses a more human rights-based approach to the relationship between environment and migration. The article focuses on the importance of protecting the rights of migrants instead of focusing on perceived security issues raised by climate migration. Such an approach would have a positive effect on both migrants, irrespective of whether their move is linked to environmental changes, and the environment. Lawrence Teillet analyses the link between the Responsibility to Protect and environmental destruction with a focus on mental health.
The issue also hosts two speeches from the launch of the Youth Climate Justice Handbook in the Hague on 20 June 2023.. The event was convened by the World’s Youth for Climate Change and the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change. Dr Maria Antonia Tigre, Senior Fellow in Global Climate Change Litigation at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, in her speech, discussed the significance of the Advisory Opinion request to the International Court of Justice on the obligations of States in respect of climate change. Katrina Bullock, general counsel for Greenpeace Australia/Pacific, argued that this Advisory Opinion could reinvigorate dialogue and international cooperation in favor of climate science and to increase ambitious action towards meeting climate goals.
The second part of the issue, expected in Autumn 2023, will cover the regional recognition and protection of the Right to a Healthy Environment.
This fascinating first issue marks the launch of the Environmental Rights Review. This launch would not have been possible without the enduring support of Dr Dina Lupin, Director of the Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment, and the generous sponsorship of the University of Southampton.
The Editorial Board
Chief Editor: Irene Antonopoulos, Royal Holloway, University of London
Jean-Pierre Gauci, Arthur Watts Senior Fellow and Director of Training, BIICL
Victoria Lichet, Chief Operating Officer, GNHRE; Executive Director, Global Pact Coalition
Dina Lupin, Director, GNHRE; School of Law, University of Southampton
Maria-Antonia Tigre, Deputy Director, GNHRE; Global Climate Litigation Fellow, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School
Natalia Urzola, Chief Operating Officer, GNHRE
Constantinos Yiallourides, Research Fellow, BIICL; Lecturer Macquarie University Sydney
[1] Special Rapporteur ‘Report on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment’, A/HRC/43/53, (Report, December 2019). See also James R. May, ‘The case for environmental human rights: Recognition, Implementation, and Outcomes’ (2020) 42 Cardozo Law Review 3, 985
[2] African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights, opened for ratification June 27, 1981, art. 24, O.A.U. Doc. CAB/LEG/67/3/Rev.5, 21 I.L.M. 58 (1982)
[3] United Nations Special Rapporteur, Report on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment A/HRC/43/53, (Report, December 2019)
[4] Caso Comunidades Indígenas Miembros de la Asociación Lhaka Honhat (Nuestra Tierra) vs. Argentina Inter-American Court of Human Rights Series C No. 420 (6 February 2020).
[5] UN Human Rights Council (HRC), ‘Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council on 8 October 2021’ (18 October 2021) UN Doc A/HRC/48/13.
[6] UN General Assembly (UNGA), ‘Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 28 July 2022’ (1 August 2022) UN Doc A/RES/76/300 <https://undocs.org/A/RES/76/300>.
[7] See David R Boyd, The Environmental Rights Revolution: A Global Study of Constitutions, Human Rights, and the Environment (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012).
Environmental Rights Review 
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