Part VII Inter-linkages with Other Regimes, Ch.45 Human Rights

This chapter examines the relationship between human rights and the environment, which has developed through the adoption and interpretation of many different national constitutions and laws, human rights treaties, and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). The development of what might be called ‘environmental human rights law’ has occurred in three main channels. First, efforts to achieve recognition of a human right to a healthy environment, while ineffective at the UN, have achieved widespread success at the national and regional levels. Second, some multilateral environmental instruments have incorporated human rights norms, especially rights of access to information, public participation, and remedy. Third, human rights tribunals and other monitoring bodies have ‘greened’ human rights law by applying a wide range of human rights to environmental harm. The chapter explains each of these paths of development before sketching potential lines of further development through recognition of the rights of nature and of future generations.

Constructing the Human Right to a Healthy Environment

Annual Review of Law and Social Science ◽

10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-031720-074856 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 79-95

Author(s):

John H. Knox

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Environmental Issues ◽

Access To Justice ◽

Access To Information ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Human Right ◽

Environmental Rights ◽

Healthy Environment ◽

The Past ◽

Environmental Human Rights

Despite the absence of a right to a healthy environment in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or any global human rights treaty, environmental human rights law has rapidly developed over the past 25 years along three paths: ( a) the widespread adoption of environmental rights in regional treaties and national constitutions; ( b) the greening of other human rights, such as the rights to life and health, through their application to environmental issues; and ( c) the inclusion in multilateral environmental instruments of rights of access to information, public participation, and access to justice. After describing these developments, this review assesses the possible effects of UN recognition of the human right to a healthy environment, both on the environment and on human rights law itself.

Protection of Vulnerable Communities: A Case of Coal-Ash Disaster in Puerto Rico

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law ◽

10.36640/mjeal.9.2.protection ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 379

Author(s):

Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Puerto Rico ◽

Environmental Justice ◽

Coal Ash ◽

Environmental Harm ◽

Human Right ◽

Healthy Environment ◽

Vulnerable Communities ◽

Access To Health ◽

The Right

The connection between the environment and human rights is not a surprising one. The enjoyment of human rights depends on a person’s ability to live free from interference and to have his or her rights protected. The interdependence of human rights and the protection of the environment is manifested in the full and effective enjoyment of the right to a healthy environment. This article argues that in order to protect vulnerable persons and communities facing environmental harm, a human rights framework—specifically the right to a healthy environment—must be applied. A human rights approach complements environmental justice work, recognizing that individuals and communities affected by environmental harm are rights-holders entitled to protection. Such communities are left out of important decisions about their environment and the effect of environmental harm in their lives. Individuals most vulnerable to environmental harm are often members of poor, rural, and disenfranchised communities. The destruction of the environment disproportionately affects these communities, preventing them from accessing basic natural resources, clean water and sanitation, adequate housing, food security, and access to health and medical assistance. Additionally, intersecting forms of discrimination exacerbate exclusion and marginalization. A human rights approach to environmental justice emphasizes the need to protect affected communities and holds the State responsible for recognizing their vulnerability and providing heightened protection. This article seeks to show that while the human right to a healthy environment has not been widely recognized, a robust juridical framework enables environmental justice advocates and affected communities to vindicate the rights of vulnerable communities. The case study of coal-ash contamination in Puerto Rico and the harms suffered by affected communities there anchors the argument for why advocates should use a human rights framework to protect the rights of the most vulnerable. The case of Puerto Rico is illustrative of so many poor, disenfranchised, and vulnerable communities around the world, affected by environmental harm and in need of a human rights-based framework.

The Paris Agreement as a Human Rights Treaty

Human Rights and 21st Century Challenges ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198824770.003.0016 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 323-347

Author(s):

John H Knox

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Human Rights ◽

Paris Agreement ◽

Environmental Harm ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Previous Decade ◽

International Human ◽

This chapter examines the Paris Agreement on climate change in light of international human rights law, with particular attention to the human rights language included in the Paris Agreement. The chapter reviews the efforts over the previous decade to characterize climate change as a threat to human rights; describes the evolution of human rights obligations relating to environmental harm in general and to climate change in particular; and assesses the new climate regime in light of these norms. It concludes that the Paris Agreement is consistent with the human rights obligations relating to climate change in many respects, but that states must strengthen their commitments in order to fulfil those obligations completely. Finally, the chapter examines how human rights norms may influence climate policy in the future.

A Genuine Islamic Conceptualization of Religious Freedom

Muslim World Journal of Human Rights ◽

10.1515/mwjhr-2018-0020 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

pp. 1-27 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Farhood Badri

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International Relations ◽

Religious Freedom ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Human Right ◽

Research Perspective ◽

Islamic Thought ◽

Comprehensive Picture ◽

Abstract Departing from a critical norm research perspective, the paper first sketches the need to unveil the Eurocentric and secular bias of International Relations (IR) as a discipline in general and its constructivist norm research program in particular. With regard to human rights norms, and religious freedom in particular, the dominant liberal-secular international human rights law understanding of religious freedom marginalizes religious, and especially, Islamic grounds and understandings of this truly global norm. Indeed, it demonstrates both, the dominant ideational perspective of religious freedom as a Western human right grounded by Western-canonical thinkers, and the limits of accommodating religion and religious voices in IR. In contrast, and against the background of a post-secular IR, the paper seeks to unveil alternative and marginalized bodies of Islamic knowledge for the sake of a more comprehensive picture to be painted by IR. By reconstructing reformist Islamic thought and Islamic ideational perspectives and conceptualizations of religious freedom, the paper seeks to let these voices speak for themselves as truly genuine Islamic contributions to IR. The overall aim is threefold: to theoretically connect critical norm research and post-secular approaches with reformist Islamic thought by conceptualizing ijtihad as religious norm contestation; to unveil the double marginalized character of critical Muslim voices in IR; and finally to paint a broader and more comprehensive picture of Islam and IR by revealing an alternative Islamic genealogy of universal religious freedom.

State responsibility for human right violations in cases of transboundary environmental harm: A new concept of extraterritoriality regarding the application of international human rights treaties?

Zbornik radova Pravnog fakulteta Nis ◽

10.5937/zrpfn0-28636 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 59 (89) ◽

pp. 15-34

Author(s):

Bojana Čučković

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Environmental Law ◽

Effective Control ◽

Environmental Harm ◽

Advisory Opinion ◽

Human Right ◽

Depth Analysis ◽

Human Rights Treaties ◽

International Human

The paper provides an in-depth analysis of the issue of extraterritorial application of human rights treaties in the specific context of transboundary environmental harm. The classic criteria for extraterritorial jurisdiction established through the landmark judgments of the European Court of Human Rights are revisited and compared with the extensive extraterritoriality threshold introduced by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in its 2017 advisory opinion on environment and human rights. The author examines the features, requirements and limits of the new extraterritoriality threshold which is based on the effective control over intraterritorial activities that result in extraterritorial human rights' violations. The paper attempts to offer arguments for perceiving the new extraterritoriality threshold as a general standard of international human rights, as well as to examine whether it represents a (mis)interpretation of the duty to prevent transboundary environmental harm as a well-established rule of international environmental law. The author also discusses the prospects of expanding the application of the new jurisdictional threshold to other areas not necessarily linked to environmental degradation.

International problem of climate change in the context of the human right to a favorable environment

10.21638/11701/26868318.35 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 549-559

Author(s):

Marina A. Ermolina ◽

◽

Anna V. Kryukova ◽

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

European Union ◽

Human Rights ◽

The State ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Human Right ◽

Healthy Environment ◽

Legal Method ◽

The Subject ◽

The Relationship

The subject of this study is the Urgenda Foundation v. The State of the Netherlands case related to climate law. This is the first known example of the use of European Union human rights law in a lawsuit on climate change and the observance of the human right to a healthy environment against the state. Using the comparative legal method, the authors consider similar cases in different countries, which makes it possible to determine the specifics of the relationship between the parties in the Fund’s case.

The Customary International Law of Human Rights

10.1093/oso/9780192845696.001.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

William A. Schabas

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International Law ◽

Customary Law ◽

Periodic Review ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Customary International Law ◽

Human Rights Treaties ◽

State Practice ◽

The 1960S ◽

Customary international law is one of the principal sources of public international law. Unlike many branches of international law, human rights law did not first develop as custom and subsequently become codified. Human rights law was viewed as quintessentially a matter of sovereign concern to States until the mid-twentieth century, when treaties and declarations were adopted by the United Nations and other international bodies. Jurists only began to speak of human rights as customary law in the 1960s. Although its existence is uncontroversial, the content of customary international law in the area of human rights has not previously been analysed in a comprehensive manner. This book discusses the emergence of the customary law of human rights, the debates about how it is to be identified, and the efforts at formulation of customary norms. It examines human rights norms in order to determine whether they may be described as customary, using as a basis the content of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Much reliance is placed upon relatively new sources of evidence of the two elements for the identification of custom, namely State practice and opinio juris, in particular the increasingly universal ratification of major human rights treaties and the materials generated by the Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the Human Rights Council. The study concludes that a large number of human rights norms may be described as customary in nature, and that courts should make greater use of custom as a source of international law.

The Idea of International Human Rights Law

10.1093/oso/9780198749844.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Steven Wheatley

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International Law ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Fragmentation Of International Law

Moral Concept ◽

Customary International Law ◽

Human Rights Treaties ◽

International Human ◽

International Human Rights Law has emerged as an academic subject in its own right, separate from, but still related to, International Law. This book explains the distinctive nature of the new discipline by examining the influence of the moral concept of human rights on general international law. Rather than make use of moral philosophy or political theory, the work explains the term ‘human rights’ by examining its usage in international law practice, on the understanding that words are given meaning through their use. Relying on complexity theory to make sense of the legal practice in the United Nations, the core human rights treaties, and customary international law, The Idea of International Human Rights Law shows how a moral concept of human rights emerged, and then influenced the international law doctrine and practice on human rights, a fact that explains the fragmentation of international law and the special nature of International Human Rights Law.

In Lieu of a Conclusion

10.1093/oso/9780198753957.003.0008 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

John Linarelli ◽

Margot E Salomon ◽

Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

International Law ◽

Global Economy ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Current State ◽

Neoliberal Capitalism ◽

Transformative Potential ◽

International Economic Law ◽

This chapter recaps the main themes of the volume, ie that the international law of the global economy is in a state of disorder. Claims about the justice, fairness, or benefits of the current state of international law as it relates to the global economy are fanciful. A more credible picture emerges when one considers who is protected, against what, and those relations that are valued and those that are not. Moreover, these claims above all require a suspension of a reflective attitude about what international law actually says and does. When it comes to international economic law, power is masked behind a veil of neutrality when it certainly is not neutral in the interests it protects and offends. As for international human rights law, it overlooks the ways in which it props up extreme capitalism foreclosing the possibility of transformative structural change to neoliberal capitalism. In its most radical areas, human rights norms have been blocked from making demands on the design of the global economy precisely because of their transformative potential. Among the central critiques of international law presented in this book is that international law must be justifiable to those who are subject to it.

The Fallacy of Effective Human Rights Protection under Relevant Treaty Law when Armed Groups Commit Violations

10.1093/oso/9780198821946.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Tilman Rodenhäuser

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Human Rights Violations ◽

Human Rights Law ◽

Armed Groups ◽

Human Rights Protection ◽

Rights Protection ◽

Human Rights Treaties ◽

International Human

Chapter 5 adds to the contemporary discourse on human rights obligations of non-state armed groups by showing that in many situations, there is a clear legal need for these obligations. This chapter first engages in the debate on whether and to what extent certain human rights treaties address armed groups directly. Second, it shows that under the law of state responsibility, states are generally not responsible for human rights violations committed by non-state entities. Third, it recalls that under international human rights law, states have an obligation to protect human rights against violations committed by armed groups. However, it argues that because this cannot be a strict obligation but is one that depends on states’ capacities and the particular circumstances, often this framework cannot adequately protect individuals against human rights violations by armed groups. The result is a legal and practical need for human rights obligations of non-state armed groups.