HUMAN RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENT BY - DHANANJAY SOOD
HUMAN RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENT
AUTHORED BY
- DHANANJAY SOOD
SEMESTER:
10
COURSE: BA
LLB (H)
ABSTRACT
Melting ice, rising ocean levels, and
changing weather conditions inferable from environmental change progressively
influence day to day existence for millions, and maybe billions, of
individuals. At the point when the climate endures, individuals endure.
Environmental change progressively slows down the acknowledgment of essential,
globally perceived common liberties including the right to life, to wellbeing,
to culture, to food, to self-assurance, to property, and to improvement. The
least fortunate and most weak will experience first, and maybe most, at the end
of the day the emergency will arrive at us all.
The importance of the environment to the
fulfillment of human rights is widely accepted at international law. What is
less well-accepted is the proposition that we, as humans, possess rights to the
environment beyond what is necessary to support our basic human needs.
As it is said that, Where there is right
there is duty. If humans have right to use environment for their purpose it’s
their duty to work for environment. Man has the basic right to Freedom, equity
and sufficient states of life, in a climate of a quality that allows an
existence of pride and prosperity, and he bears a serious obligation to secure
and work on the climate for present and people in the future. A human rights
perspective directly addresses environmental impacts on the life, health,
private life, and property of individual humans rather than on other states or
the environment in general. A human rights focus may serve to secure higher
standards of environmental quality, based on the obligation of States to take
measures to control pollution affecting health and private life.
INTRODUCTION
The relationship between human rights and
the environment was first recognized by the UN General Assembly in the late
1960s. In 1972, the direct relationship between the environment and the right
to life was recognized by the United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment. The Preamble stated that Man is both creature and moulder of his
environment, which gives him physical sustenance and affords him the
opportunity for intellectual, moral, social and spiritual growth.
The two parts of man's current
circumstance, the regular and the artificial, are crucial for his prosperity
and to the delight in essential common freedoms - even the right to life
itself. Principle 1 of the Stockholm Declaration laid out a further starting
point for connecting basic liberties and ecological security, pronouncing that
Man has the essential right to opportunity, uniformity and satisfactory states
of life, in a climate of a quality that allows an existence of poise and
prosperity. In 1982 the World Charter for Nature recognized that Humankind is a
piece of nature and life relies upon the continuous working of regular
frameworks which guarantee the stockpile of energy and supplements.[1] In
1992, the United Conference on Enviornment and Development (also called as
Earth Summit) expressed that Human beings are at the centre of concerns for
sustainable development.
They are entitled to a
healthy and productive life in harmony with nature. The Declaration also provided for the right
of access to environmental information and of public participation in
environmental decision making. In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable
Development merely acknowledged the position that there exists a possible
relationship between environment and human rights.
In addition, the UN Human
Rights Commission adopted several resolutions linking human rights and the
environment, such as Res. 2005/60 entitled Human rights and the environment as
part of sustainable development. The resolution called on states to take all
necessary measures to protect the legitimate exercise of everyone’s human
rights when promoting environmental protection and sustainable development and
reaffirmed, in this context, that everyone has the right, individually and in
association with others, to participate in peaceful activities against
violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
ENVIORNMENTAL
RIGHTS
Environmental rights means any proclamation
of a human right to environmental conditions of a specified quality.
Environmental rights are composed of substantive rights (fundamental rights)
and procedural rights (tools used to achieve substantial rights).
SUBSTANTIVE
RIGHTS
Substantive are those in which the
environment has a direct effect on the existence or the enjoyment of the right
itself. Substantive rights comprise of: civil and political rights, such as the rights
to life, freedom of association and freedom from discrimination; economic and social rights such as rights to health, food and an adequate standard of
living; cultural rights such as rights to
access religious sites; and collective rights affected
by environmental degradation, such as the rights of indigenous peoples.
PROCEDURAL
RIGHTS
Procedural rights prescribe formal
steps to be taken in enforcing legal rights. Procedural rights include 3
Fundamental Acess Rights,These are:-
1. Access to information
2. Public participation
3. Access to justice
ROLE
OF INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION IN PROTECTION OF ENVIORNMENT
Principle 21 of Stockholm declaration
is of great importance. Principle 21 states that in accordance to UN Charter
and principles of international law the state has a sovereign right to exploit
its resources and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their
jurisdiction or control do not damage to the environment of other states.
Moreover international community imposes a duty towards member states to
include environment protection in domestic constitution.
In 1992,The United Conference on Environment and
Development(UNCED) was held in RIO DEE JANEIRO. UNCED focused rather on
development related subjects(mostly North-South
related topics)Indeed, the term
“human Rights’ is only used three times in the Rio Declaration on Environment
and Development(RIO DECLARTION)
Environmentalists suggest that the
purpose of environmental law is egocentric. Obligations and duties are imposed
on governments, companies,individual human beings or groups in order to reach
these goals. The Antarctica Treaty(1959),the world Heritage
Convention(1972),the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species(1973) and the world charter for Nature(1982) are some examples.
INTERNATIONAL
HUMAN RIGHTS LAW INCLUDES RIGHT TO HAVE CLEAN ENVIRONMENT
Only two regional human right treaties contain an
identifiable right to environment, namely the article 24 of ACHPR and article
11 of the San Salvador Protocol to ACHR. Article 24 ACHPR will be taken as
example.
Article 24 of ACHPR is called “third generation human
right”. Article 24 ACHPR entitles a right to environment which should be
general, satisfactory and favorable to
development3.
CONSTITUTIONAL
RIGHT TO CLEAN ENVIRONMENT IN INDIA
The chapter on fundamental duties of the Indian
Constitution clearly imposes duty on every citizen to protect environment.
Article 51-A (g), says that it shall be duty of every citizen of India to
protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers
and wild life and to have compassion for living creatures.
Article 47 provides that the State
shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living
of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties.
The improvement of public health also includes the protection and improvement
of environment without which public health cannot be assured. Article 48 deals
with organization of agriculture and animal husbandry. It directs the State to
take steps to organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and
scientific lines.
In particular, it should take steps
for preserving and improving the breeds and prohibiting the slaughter of cows
and calves and other milch and draught cattle. Article 48 -A of the
constitution says that the state shall endeavour to protect and improve the
environment and to safeguard the forests and wild life of the country.
The Constitution of India under part
III guarantees fundamental rights which are essential for the development of
every individual and to which a person is inherently entitled by virtue of
being human alone. Right to environment is also a right without which
development of individual and realization of his or her full potential shall
not be possible. Articles 21, 14 and 19 of this part have been used for
environmental protection.
According to Article 21 of the
constitution, no person shall be
deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure
established by law . Article 21 has received liberal interpretation from time
to time after the decision of the Supreme Court in Maneka Gandhi vs. Union of
India, (AIR 1978 SC 597)[5]. Article 21 guarantees fundamental right to life.
Right to environment, free of danger of disease and infection is inherent in
it. Right to healthy environment is important attribute of right to live with
human dignity.
Human Rights in India are guaranteed
as fundamental rights under Part III(Article 12-35) of the constitution. The
Indian Supreme Court decided in 1980 that Part III and Part IV were
complementing. Whereas, Part IV imposes obligations on the state, Part III is
the control mechanism. Therefore, citizens can theoretically demand the state
to fulfill its duties, as if it were their fundamental rights.
In KOOLWAL VS RAJASTHAN, the
Rajasthan High Court even decided in favor of environmental rights, although no
injuries to the population were alleged in the particular case. This shows how
serious Indian Court take environmental issues.
The High Court of Rajasthan decided that ‘Article 51A
gives a right to the citizen to move the Court for the enforcement of the duty
cast on state instrumentalities, agencies, departments ,local bodies and
statutory authorities.[2]
In India,the jurisdiction of the
supreme Court widened the scope of the right to life in Article 21 and included
the right to a wholesome environment. In various cases of M.C Mehta courts
reiterated that right to have a clean environment is a basic human right.
SUBHASH
KUMAR VS STATE OF BIHAR
The Supreme Court ruled that “Article
32 is designed for the enforcement of fundamental rights of a citizen by the
apex court” and the “right to life is a fundamental right under article 21 of
the constitution and it include the right of enjoyment of pollution free water
and air for full enjoyment of life”.(AIR 1991)
Article 21have proven to be
substantial legal basis to claim environmental rights, and its application was
widened by the Indian jurisprudence during the years. Courts always tries to
give importance to aspect of sustainable development through its judgments[3].
HUMAN
RIGHT AND ENVIRONMENT
The relationship between human rights and the
environment was first recognized by the UN General Assembly in the late 1960s.
In 1972, the direct relationship between the environment and the right to life
was recognized by the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. The
Preamble stated that Man is both creature and molder of his environment, which
gives him physical sustenance and affords him the opportunity for intellectual,
moral, social and spiritual growth.
Both aspects of man’s environment,
the natural and the manmade, are essential to his well-being and to the
enjoyment of basic human rights –even the right to life itself. Principle 1 of the Stockholm Declaration
established a further foundation for linking human rights and environmental
protection, declaring that Man has the
fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an
environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and wellbeing. In 1982 the World Charter for Nature
acknowledged that Mankind is a part of
nature and life depends on the uninterrupted functioning of natural systems
which ensure the supply of energy and nutrients. In 1992, the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (also known as the Earth Summit) stated that Human
beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development.
They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in
harmony with nature. The Declaration
also provided for the right of access to environmental information and of public
participation in environmental decision making. In 2002, the World Summit on
Sustainable Development merely acknowledged the position that there exists a
possible relationship between environment and human rights.
In addition, the UN Human Rights
Commission adopted several resolutions linking human rights and the
environment, such as Res. 2005/60 entitled Human rights and the environment as
part of sustainable development. The resolution called on states to take all necessary measures to protect the
legitimate exercise of everyone’s human rights when promoting environmental
protection and sustainable development and reaffirmed, in this context, that
everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to
participate in peaceful activities against violations of human rights and
fundamental freedoms.
The resolution emphasized the needs
of the vulnerable members of society and also encouraged efforts towards the
implementation of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development to ensure
this right, although there is little evidence of work to make this happen. Over
the last year there has been increasing interest in these issues. ANPED have
made this a key focus for work towards the 2002 Summit. As part of this work
ANPED is building links with NGOs and other agencies in all parts of the world.
There is no doubt that the timing of this activity is appropriate: the 2001
meeting of the UN High Commission on Human Rights has called for an
international seminar on these issues to be jointly run by UNEP and the UNCHR.
Work towards sustainable development is increasingly
recognising the importance of a human rights approach. This should not be
surprising: the protection of human life in relation to life, health, culture
and living standards is central to any social, environmental or economic
programmers. The right to life cannot be realized without the basic right to
clean, water, air and land. A human rights approach allows the quality of life
of people, in particular the most vulnerable, to be integrated into
environmental decision making.
There are two main approaches to
human rights and the environment:
# The use of existing human rights,
and
# The need for new human rights for a
safe and clean environment.
The rights we have already are:
1. Civil and political and
2. Economic, social and cultural. Civil
and political rights provide for moral and political order.
Such rights include the right to life, equality,
political participation and association. They are couched most clearly in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (1966). When realized civil and political rights are
fundamental to guaranteeing a political order supportive of sustainable
development. They can protect civil mobilization around environmental
protection and equity. Economic, social andcultural rights are often referred
to as ‘second generation’ rights. These provide substantive standards for an
individual’s well-being.
The
need for environmental rights
It is nearly thirty years since the
UN Stockholm Conference in 1972 put environmental issues on the international
agenda. Since then there has been much hard work to protect and improve the
environment globally, nationally and locally. There has been much progress, but
it is clear that in all parts of the world our environment is under threat and
that many problems are becoming more serious. The Rio summit recognised these
problems and sought to resolve them through Agenda 21 and the various UNCED
Conventions.
Work on implementing these
conventions, which are based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility ,
has gradually revealed that these less than perfect bargains have:
1. Failed to place constraints on
national strategies that may lead to unsustainable growth.
2. Failed to ensure the implementation
of national framework laws and enforcement strategies such as National
Environmental Action Plans (NEAP).
3. Failed to control perverse state
resource use and damaged intergenerational equity.
4. Increasingly revealed the
inadequacies of funding by those agencies which fund strictly environmental
work that does not consider socio-economic factors. It is failures such as
these that have led to calls for a new approach to sustainable development.
A further driver for change has been the increased
pressure resulting from globalisation. It is clear that non-mandatory (soft
law) agreements are an inadequate basis for ensuring effective control of these
processes. The need for change has been acknowledged, but some will question
whether the introduction of inalienable human rights to a safe environment is
the way forward. It has been suggested during our initial work that adequate
rights already exist.
This is simply not the case. There
are a few key international rights, but substantive rights to a safe
environment the rights are still largely implied rather than explicit. In
theory, existing human rights legislation should protect our environment but
this does not happen in practice.
Many groups have tried to use Human Rights legislation
to protect the environment, such as the Right to Life defined by Article 2 of
the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that everyone has a right to life protected by law
. Most attempts to do this have been unsuccessful, although some successful
cases exist. We believe that this is an inadequate way to provide for our rights.
Indian
Laws Relating to Environment and Human Rights
The chapter on fundamental duties of
the Indian Constitution clearly imposes duty on every citizen to protect
environment. Article 51-A (g), says that
It shall be duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the
natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life and to have
compassion for living creatures. Article 47 provides that the State shall
regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its
people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties. The
improvement of public health also includes the protection and improvement of
environment without which public health cannot be assured. Article 48 deals
with organization of agriculture and animal husbandry. It directs the State to
take steps to organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and
scientific lines.
In particular, it should take steps for preserving and
improving the breeds and prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other
milch and draught cattle. Article 48 -A of the constitution says that the state
shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the
forests and wild life of the country.
The Constitution of India under part
III guarantees fundamental rights which are essential for the development of
every individual and to which a person is inherently entitled by virtue of
being human alone. Right to environment is also a right without which
development of individual and realisation of his or her full potential shall
not be possible. Articles 21, 14 and 19 of this part have been used for
environmental protection.[4]
According to Article 21 of the
constitution, no person shall be
deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure
established by law . Article 21 has received liberal interpretation from time
to time after the decision of the Supreme Court in Maneka Gandhi vs. Union of
India, (AIR 1978 SC 597)[5]. Article 21 guarantees fundamental right to life.
Right to environment, free of danger of disease and infection is inherent in
it. Right to healthy environment is important attribute of right to live with
human dignity.
Policy
and Laws in Medieval India (1638-1800 AD)
To Mughal rulers, forest meant no more than woodlands
where they could hunt. The history of medieval India is dominated by Muslim
Rulers where no noteworthy development of environmental jurisprudence took
place except during the rule of Mughal Emperor Akbar. During Akbar’s rule
except rulers others are prohibited from hunting or shikar. But no major
initiatives took place during medieval period to prevent environmental
protection and conservation of natural resources as the rulers were only
interested in war, religion propagation and empire building. Barring royal trees
which enjoyed patronage from being cut except upon a fee, there was no
restriction on cutting of other trees, hunting animals, etc. Forests during
this period shrank steadily in size.9
Laws
in British India (1800-1947 AD)
# Shore Nuisance (Bombay and Kolaba)
Act, 1853 imposed restrictions on the fouling of seawater.
# Merchant Shipping Act of 1858 dealt
with prevention of sea pollution by oil.
# The Fisheries Act, 1897
# The Bengal Smoke Nuisance Act of
1905
# Bombay Smoke Nuisance Act of 1912
# Wild Birds and Animals Protection
Act, 1912
Laws
after Independence (1947)
The Indian Constitution, as adopted
in 1950, did not deal with that the subject of environment or prevention and
control of pollution as such (until 1976 Amendment). The post independent
Indian approach was centred on economic development and poverty alleviation and
not on resource conservation.
The year 1972 was a landmark in the
field of environment, when United Nations Conference on the Human Environment
was held at Stockholm (Sweden) from 5th to 16th June, in which Declaration on
the Human Environment was adopted. This may be considered as the beginning of
environment movement in the world.
The Stockholm Declaration of 1972 was
perhaps the first major attempt to conserve and protect the human environment
at the international level. The preamble of it states, 'the need for a common
outlook and for common principles to inspire and guide the peoples of the world
in the preservation and enhancement of the human environment.
As a consequence of this Declaration,
the States were required to adopt legislative measures to protect and improve
the environment. Accordingly, Indian Parliament inserted two Articles, i.e.,
48A and 51A in the Constitution of India in 1976.
In India a separate ministry namely The Department of
Environment was established in 1980 to ensure a healthy environment for the
country.
The main acts for
environment protection in India are as follows:
1. The Forest Conservation Act, 1980
2. The Prevention of Air and Water
Pollution, 1974, 1981 (The Central Pollution Control Board) (CPCB) was
constituted under this act.
3. The Air Prevention and Control of
Pollution, 1981.
4. The Atomic Energy Act. 1982.
5. The Environmental Protection Act,
1986. (It came into force soon after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy)
6. The Environmental Conservation Act.
1989.
7. The National Environmental Tribunal,
1995.
8. National Environmental Appellate
Authority Act, 1997.
9. National Environment Management Act
(NEMA), 1998
Councils
to Protect Environment
The United Nations Environment
Assembly is the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment.
It addresses the critical environmental challenges facing the world today.
Understanding these challenges and preserving and rehabilitating our
environment is at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The Environment Assembly meets
biennially to set priorities for global environmental policies and develop
international environmental law. Through its resolutions and calls to action,
the Assembly provides leadership and catalyses intergovernmental action on the
environment. Decision-making requires broad participation, which is why the
Assembly provides an opportunity for all peoples to help design solutions for
our planet’s health.
HOW
ARE FIRST WORLD COUNTRIES RESPONSIBLE FOR POLLUTION IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES
Although the richest, most developed
countries in the world are overwhelmingly to blame for the catastrophe of
global climate change, they are not the ones who will suffer the most from it.
Who will? You guessed it: the poorest countries.
The unfairness of that is
self-evident, but so is the truth of it. For more than a century, the largest
emitters of greenhouse gases, in total as well as per capita, have been the big
developed nations, most notably the United States and the countries of Europe,
which grew their economies by burning fossil fuels and spewing carbon from
their factories, homes and cars. Today they still emit carbon and other
greenhouse gasses disproportionately into the environment, although other big
countries such as China and India have caught up.
Yet even as the wealthy nations drive the world toward
ecological disaster, it is clearly the poor countries that will face the
gravest consequences and have the most difficulty coping. For instance,
low-lying Bangladesh, already battered by increasingly powerful cyclones, could
lose 10% of its territory to the ocean within a few decades, displacing 18
million people.
Political instability and violence,
influenced in part by droughts and poor harvests, have already driven millions
of people from their homes in sub-Saharan Africa and Central America.
A recent study from Stanford
University found that climate change is exacerbating global income inequality
between wealthy nations in cooler regions, and poor nations in hotter parts of
the world. This is due, at least in part, to the relative inability of poorer
countries to pay for the projects necessary to mitigate the effects of climate
change, including more extreme weather events and the deterioration of arable
land in subsistence economies.
For instance, Miami Beach is spending hundreds of
millions of dollars to raise streets and install pumps in preparation for the expected
flooding from rising seas — but Port-au-Prince, Haiti, only
700 miles away, simply doesn’t have
the resources for such projects.
A report released last week found
that extreme weather displaced 7 million people from their homes during the
first half of 2019, especially in Asia and Africa. That set a new record, but
researchers warned that the number of such events would increase as the climate
continues to change.
So whose problem is this to fix? The
simple answer, of course, is that the responsibility for mitigating climate
change belongs to all of us: A global problem requires a global solution. We
must all change our behavior and our policies.
But the effort must be led by the
nations that reaped so many of the benefits of economic development and
increased wealth through industrialization for so long. The poorest countries
in the world need help finding the money, resources and technology to move
toward a sustainable future without plunging themselves much further into
crushing poverty and inequality. The richer countries, though they will have
enormous costs of their own, have a moral obligation to step up.
The call for “climate justice” is not
new. In 2010 and then again at the 2015 Paris agreement on climate change,
wealthier nations pledged to donate to the so-called Green Climate Fund,
building up to $100 billion per year by 2020. The fund was created under the
auspices of the United Nations to help developing countries reduce the
emissions that lead to climate change and adapt to the inevitable effects of it
that are already underway. The goal of the fund is to use “public investment to
stimulate private finance” for climate-related projects. It is governed by a
board of representatives from 24 nations.
But in 2018, Oxfam found that the
donor nations had fallen behind in meeting their pledge. The organization’s
senior climate change policy advisor called the money moving from rich
countries to the least developed and most vulnerable “sadly inadequate.” We
would add: shameful. While the world burns, the politicians and bureaucrats
fiddle.
So far, donor nations have coughed up
only $10.3 billion and the Green Climate Fund has committed $5.2 billion of
that to 111 projects around the world. President Trump, true to form, has vowed
to “terminate” American contributions to the fund; to date, the U.S. has only
sent $1 billion of the $3 billion that President Obama had pledged
When the Environmental Protection
Agency released its plan earlier this month for addressing marine litter, it
named five Asian nations—China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and
Vietnam—as responsible for more than half of the plastic waste flowing into the
oceans every year.
“The United States has some of the most beautiful
beaches and oceans in the world, and the coastlines are incredible,” President
Trump says in enlarged type on the plan’s first page. “As president, I will continue
to do everything I can to stop other nations from making our oceans into their
landfills.”14
The trouble with that framing,
scientists say, is it distorts the complexities of a global problem and
contributes to a sense of complacency in the United States that marine litter
is Asia’s problem.
Now, new research, published Friday in Science
Advances, reexamines the U.S.’s role as a plastic consumer and concludes that
the country has much more work to do at home to manage its waste.
China may be the world’s largest
manufacturer of plastic, the report finds, but the United States is by far the
world’s largest generator of plastic waste—it produced about 42 million metric
tons of the stuff (46 million U.S. tons) in 2016. The U.S. also ranks as high as
third among coastal nations for contributing litter, illegally dumped trash and
other mismanaged waste to its shorelines.
Meanwhile, less than 10 percent of
American plastic waste is recycled, and the U.S. has a 30-year history of
shipping half of its recyclable plastic overseas, primarily to China and other
developing nations lacking the infrastructure to manage it. That practice was
drastically reduced only when China stopped buying plastic scrap in 2018 as
part of a green campaign to clean up its own environment.
The study’s authors say they
conducted it, in part, because the “finger-pointing” has not helped draw the
world together to work on a global solution.
“Let’s face it, we have a large
coastal population [in the U.S.]. We are massive consumers and that has
consequences, and we have to get out of this silliness that all we have to do
is stop Asians from dumping in the ocean and we’d be all set,” says Ted
Siegler, an economist and partner at DSM Environmental Services in Windsor,
Vermont, and a co-author of the study.
The new research is not the only analysis of the
United States’s handling of plastic waste. The National Academies of Sciences
held its first public meeting this week for an 18-month assessment of the
United States’ contribution to plastic waste that was commissioned by Congress
and is due at the end of 2021. That research is included in legislation that
funds the marine debris program operated by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, which will oversee the project.
In convening the meeting, Amy Uhrin, chief scientist
of NOAA’s marine debris program, reminded her audience, “It’s not strictly a
Southeast Asia problem.”
The blame-Asia storyline dates to
2015
Ironically, the Asia storyline took hold after some of
the same authors of the new Science
Advances study published the first comprehensive
assessment of the global waste problem in 2015
. Using World Bank data from 192 coastal nations, they
concluded that an average of 8 million
In that 2015 study, the scientists
also published a chart listing the top 20 nations contributing plastic waste,
which has since been widely circulated. The top five plastic polluters included
China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. The United States
ranked twentieth, the only wealthy nation on the list.
To be sure, heavily populated
developing nations in Asia and Africa that have an expanding middle class, a
growing appetite for consumer products, and a lack of infrastructure to
properly manage waste are indeed major contributors to the global problem.
But Dave Ford, a former advertising
executive, finds that narrative unhelpful. In 2019, he enlisted Soul Buffalo,
the leadership network he founded, to bring industry titans and
environmentalists together in search of solutions to the plastic waste problem.
“We’ve got 70 of the top
organizations in the world on board and 25 brands,” he says. “We’re in regular
dialogue with top industry leaders. But I’ve had at least a dozen U.S.
companies tell me they didn’t feel like it made sense for them to join because
this is largely an Asian issue.”
Winnie Lau, a scientist at the Pew
Charitable Trusts who was not involved in the Science Advances study, says it
“sheds light on the true extent of the contributions of high-income countries
like the U.S., to the global marine plastic pollution problem.” She says the
findings reinforce conclusions reached by Pew’s own research on plastic waste.
Earlier this year,in partnership with SYSTEMQ, a
London-based environmental consulting firm, Pew forecast that plastic waste in
the oceans will triple by 2040 unless the world acts urgently to reduce plastic
use and gain control of trash.
The new work
The pioneering 2015 study of marine
plastic didn’t include illegal dumping and export of plastic waste. In the new
analysis, the team considered those actions, but only for the U.S. They say
data for other nations were inconsistent or didn’t exist.
“We were not attempting to re-do the
2015 study,” says Kara Lavender Law, a marine scientist at the Sea Education
Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and the new study’s lead author. “The
whole point was to examine the United States.”
However, the scientists did find that many developing
nations with poor waste management in the 2015 study, which used 2010 data,
have since reported improvements in waste management and construction of
infrastructure. The top five Asian nations also reported gains. China, for
example, reported a 60 percent decrease in waste generation and a 51 percent
decrease in inadequately managed waste, primarily due to rapid construction of
incineration plants.
Conclusion
Articulating a right to a decent or
healthy environment within the context of economic, social, and cultural rights
is not inherently problematic. Clarifying the existence of such a right would
entail giving greater weight to the global public interest in protecting the
environment and promoting sustainable development, but this could be achieved
without doing damage to the fabric of human rights law, and in a manner which
fully respects the wide margin of appreciation that states are entitled to
exercise when balancing economic, environmental, and social policy objectives.
It would build on existing precedents under the ICESCR, and reflect
international policy on sustainable development endorsed at Rio in 1992 and in
subsequent international conferences.
The further elaboration of procedural
rights, based on the Aarhus Convention, would facilitate the implementation of
such a right, and give greater prominence globally to the role of NGOs in
public interest litigation and advocacy. These two developments go hand in
hand. They are not a necessary part of any declaration or protocol on human
rights and the environment, but they do represent a logical extension of
existing policies and would represent a real exercise in progressive
development of the law.
A declaration or protocol on human
rights and the environment thus makes sense provided it brings together
existing civil, political, economic, and social rights in one coherent whole,
while at the same time re-conceptualizing in the language of economic and
social rights the idea of the environment as a common good. It would, in other
words, recognize the global environment as a public interest that states have a
responsibility to protect, even if they only implement that responsibility
progressively and insofar as resources allow.
Using existing human rights law to
grapple with climate change is more challenging. Giving human rights
extraterritorial scope in environmental cases is not the problematic issue,
however. As we have seen, the argument that transboundary victims come within
the jurisdiction or control of the polluting state can be made, is consistent
with existing human rights law, and is supported by developments in
international environmental law.
f that is correct then a state does
have to take account of transboundary environmental impacts on human rights and
it is obliged to facilitate access to remedies and other procedures. But
climate change is a global problem. It cannot easily be addressed by the simple
process of giving existing human rights law transboundary effect.
It affects many states and much of
humanity. Its causes, and those responsible, are too numerous and too widely
spread to respond usefully to individual human rights claims. Moreover, much of
the economic policy which drives greenhouse gas emissions worldwide is
presently lawful and consistent with the terms of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto
Protocol. It is no more likely to be derailed by human rights litigation based
on ICCPR rights than the UK’s policy on Heathrow airport in the Hatton Case.
The response of human rights law – if
it is to have one – needs to be in global terms, treating the global
environment and climate as the common concern of humanity. That is why locating
the right to a decent environment within the corpus and institutional
structures of economic, social, and cultural rights makes more sense. In that
context the policies of individual states on energy use, reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions, land use, and deforestation could be scrutinized and
balanced against the evidence of their global impact on human rights and the
environment.
This is not a panacea for deadlock in
the UNFCCC negotiations, but it would give the rights of humanity as a whole a
voice that at present is scarcely heard.
Whether the UNHRC wishes to travel
down this road is another question, for politicians to answer rather than
lawyers, but that is where it must go if it wishes to do more than posture on
climate change..”