The UN Human Rights Council passed a landmark resolution that recognised a right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The Council also voted to appoint a special rapporteur to monitor human rights in light of the climate emergency. Resolution 48/13 necessitates nations around the globe to take "bold action" to protect this newly recognised right.
RESOLUTION 48/13
The text, proposed jointly by Costa Rica, the Maldives, Morocco, Slovenia, and Switzerland, was passed with 43 votes in favour and 4 abstentions from Russia, India, China, and Japan on Friday 8 October 2021. Over 80% of UN Member States already recognise the right to a healthy environment under their own domestic laws, court judgments, or regional treaties. Nevertheless, Resolution 48/13 marks a watershed moment in the fight against the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and loss of biodiversity and habitat. Though not legally binding, it has the potential to shape global standards. Campaigners hope the resolution will empower local communities to defend their livelihoods, health, and culture against environmental destruction. They also hope it will provide a yardstick to measure states’ climate policies and hold them accountable when they fail to take action.
THE CLIMATE CRISIS: “CODE RED FOR HUMANITY”
2021 alone has proven the deadly and long-lasting effects of climate change. In August 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warned that some of the major changes already seen will prove "irreversible" for centuries to millennia ahead. It "unequivocally" blamed humans for the devastating changes. A World Health Organization (WHO) report highlighted that 24% of all global deaths, roughly 13.7 million deaths a year, are linked to the environment, due to risks such as air pollution and chemical exposure.
According to John Knox, an expert on international environmental law and human rights law at Wake Forest University, countries that have put into law a right to a healthy environment, such as Costa Rica, have tended to perform better across a whole host of different environmental indicators. He posits that a healthy environment is as important to human life as freedom of expression, health, work, education, and other rights generally accepted under international human rights law.
However, a concern shared amongst campaigners was the United States' opposition to the environmental resolution. Some believe the US's decision is consistent with its stance on various other human rights treaties and resolutions, for example its abstention from voting on a U.N resolution recognising the right to clean water and sanitation in 2010. German children's rights advocate, Jonas Schubert, thinks the US fears "that other countries or citizens of other countries might use a legal right to a clean environment to sue the U.S. government, the world’s biggest contributor to climate change”.
LEGAL ACTION AGAINST CLIMATE OFFENCES
Environmental legal experts, such as Annalisa Savaresi, expect more lawsuits invoking the right to a healthy environment as people become increasingly conscious of the right’s recognition. Prior to the resolution, numerous court actions were brought against regimes for environmental offences, like the 2019 cases of Urgenda Foundation v. State of the Netherlands and the successful lawsuit initiated by the Waorani indigenous community against the Ecuadorian government for not consulting with them before offering their land for oil exploration.
In June 2021, a team of legal scholars defined ecocide, which if recognised as an international crime would allow individuals to be prosecuted for "unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”. An arguable example of an ecocide would be Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's alleged attacks on the Amazon. Last week, Austrian not-for-profit AllRise filed a landmark complaint at the ICC saying his acts amount to crimes against humanity. While critics of ecocide as an international crime have pointed to the difficulty in enforcing it and questioned the utility and necessity of a fifth international crime, others argue criminalisation is vital to protect the planet
Mithurja is a Tamil Guardian journalist and BPTC graduate from City, University of London. She is interested in practising at the Bar of England and Wales. Her interests revolve around international human rights and humanitarian laws. Mithurja represented the UK at the international rounds at the ICC in the ICC Moot Court Competition 2019.