A healthy environment is finally universally recognized as a human right !
Many of the human rights we take for granted today were not present before: the right to life, the right to work, the right to health, the right to education, freedom from slavery and torture. These rights may not be universally applied, but once they are adopted, they have made progress, including allowing people to demand these rights. The United Nations General Assembly added today another universally recognized right to this list: the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
The triple global crisis of climate change, loss of nature and biodiversity, pollution and waste is an enormous threat to present and future generations. This crisis is undermining almost every other right we have already recognized.
The right to a healthy environment emerged as a concept on the international scene five decades ago during the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Last October, the United Nations Human Rights Council recognized that right for the first time. Today’s decision of the United Nations General Assembly, the body to which all UN member states belong, is the culmination point of a decades long process to ensure the necessary universal recognition of this human right.
This decision of the United Nations General Assembly is indeed the result of sustained and co-ordinated efforts of States, civil society, indigenous peoples, youth, national human rights institutions, business communities and UN bodies. Their determination and guidance has led to this important moment.
Universal recognition serves as a powerful catalyst to accelerate action on the environment. The adoption of this resolution can ensure that States respect and protect the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. It can create a more predictable and uniform global regulatory environment for companies. The adoption of this resolution will also help individuals defend their right to clean air and their rights of access to clean water and non-toxic environments This resolution sends the message that nobody can take away nature, clean air and water, or a stable climate– at least not without struggle.
With its resolution, the UN General Assembly showed its solidarity with the billions of people who are suffering under the growing weight of the triple global crisis.
