The Human Right to a Healthy Environment

This book considers and clarifies many different facets of the international human right to a healthy environment.

John H. Knox (Edited by), Ramin Pejan (Edited by)

9781108431583, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 June 2018

306 pages, 1 table
22.8 x 15.3 x 1.7 cm, 0.46 kg

'The right to breathe is surely the most fundamental of all rights, and the state of our planet must be placed at the heart of the human rights issue. The Human Right to a Healthy Environment advances this critical cause and supports the often deadly work of countless environmental defenders around the world. Its message is simple: we have both a moral and a legal imperative to act.' Erik Solheim, Head of UN Environment

The absence of a globally recognized right to a healthy environment has not prevented the development of human rights norms relating to the environment. Indeed, one of the most noteworthy aspects of human rights law over the last twenty years is that UN treaty bodies, regional tribunals, special rapporteurs, and other human rights mechanisms have applied human rights law to environmental issues even without a stand-alone, justiciable human right to a healthy environment. In The Human Right to a Healthy Environment, a diverse set of scholars and practitioners, all of whom have been instrumental in defining the relationship between human rights and the environment, provide their thoughts on what is, or should be, the role of an international human right to a healthy environment. The right to a healthy environment could be a capstone to this field of law, could help to provide structure to it, or could move it in new directions.

1. Introduction John H. Knox and Ramin Pejan
2. Catalyst for change: evaluating forty years of experience in implementing the right to a healthy environment David R. Boyd
3. Learning from constitutional environment rights Erin Daly and James R. May
4. The right to a satisfactory, healthy and sustainable environment in the African regional human rights system Lilian Chenwi
5. The European Court of Human Rights and international environmental law Ole W. Pedersen
6. Complexities and uncertainties in matters of human rights and the environment: identifying the judicial role Dinah Shelton
7. Reasoning up: environmental rights as customary international law Rebecca M. Bratspies
8. In search of a right to a healthy environment in international law: jus cogens norms Louis J. Kotzé
9. A human right to a healthy environment? Moral, legal and empirical considerations César Rodríguez-Garavito
10. Quality control of the right to a healthy environment Marcos Orellana
11. The Malé formulation of the overarching environmental human right Daniel Magraw and Kristina Wienhöfer
12. The politics of human rights, the environment, and climate change at the human rights council: towards a universal right to a healthy environment? Marc Limon
13. Human rights in the climate change regime: from Rio to Paris and beyond Lavanya Rajamani
14. The right to a healthy environment and climate change: mismatch or harmony? Sumudu Atapattu.

Subject Areas: Nature Conservation law [LNKN], Environment law [LNKJ], International organisations & institutions [LBBU], International humanitarian law [LBBS], International human rights law [LBBR], International environmental law [LBBP]