The resolution, based on a similar text adopted last year by the Human Rights Council, calls on states, international organizations and businesses to increase their efforts to ensure a healthy environment for all.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed the “historic” decision and said the landmark development showed member states could come together in the collective fight against the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
“The resolution will help reduce environmental injustices, close protection gaps and empower people, especially those in vulnerable situations, including environmental human rights defenders, children, youth, women and indigenous peoples” , he said in a statement released by his spokesman’s office.
He added that the decision would also help countries speed up the implementation of their environmental and human rights obligations and commitments.
“The international community has given universal recognition to this right and brought us closer to making it a reality for all,” he said.
Guterres stressed that, however, the adoption of the resolution “is only the beginning” and called on nations to make this newly recognized right “a reality for everyone, everywhere”.
UN News/Laura Quiñones
Young climate activists take part in demonstrations at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
Urgent action is required
In a statement, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet also welcomed the Assembly’s decision and reiterated the Secretary-General’s call for urgent action to implement it.
“Today is a historic moment, but simply asserting our right to a healthy environment is not enough. The resolution of the General Assembly is very clear: countries must fulfill their international commitments and increase their efforts to implement them. We will all suffer far worse consequences from environmental crises if we don’t work together to collectively prevent them now,” she said.
Ms. Bachelet explained that environmental action based on human rights obligations provides vital safeguards for economic policies and business models.
“This highlights the basis of legal obligations to act, not simply discretionary policy. It is also more efficient, legitimate and sustainable,” she added.
A solution for the entire planet
The text, originally submitted by Costa Rica, the Maldives, Morocco, Slovenia and Switzerland last June, and now co-sponsored by more than 100 countries, notes that the right to a healthy environment is linked to existing international law and affirms that its promotion requires full implementation of multilateral environmental agreements.
It also recognizes that the impacts of climate change, the unsustainable management and use of natural resources, air, land and water pollution, the mismanagement of chemicals and waste, and the resulting loss of biodiversity impede the exercise of this right – and that environmental damage has negative consequences, both direct and indirect, for the effective exercise of all human rights.
According to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, Mr. David Boyd, the Assembly’s decision will change the very nature of international human rights law.
“Governments have been promising to clean up the environment and address the climate emergency for decades, but the right to a healthy environment is changing people’s perspective from asking to demanding that governments act,” he told UN News recently.
UN News/Laura Quiñones
The Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon in Iceland is formed naturally by glacial melt water and is constantly growing as large blocks of ice break away from a shrinking glacier.
A victory five decades in the making
In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Environment in Stockholm, which concluded with its own historic declaration, was the first to place environmental issues at the forefront of international issues and marked the beginning of a dialogue between industrialized and developing countries on the relationship between economic growth, air, water and ocean pollution and the well-being of people around the world.
UN member states then declared that people have a fundamental right to “an environment of quality that allows for a life of dignity and well-being”, calling for concrete action and recognition of this right.
Last October, after decades of work by nations on the front lines of climate change, such as the Maldivian archipelago, as well as more than 1,000 civil society organizations, the Human Rights Council finally recognized this right and called on the UN General Assembly to do the same .
“Since its position in the 1972 Stockholm Declaration, the law has been integrated into constitutions, national laws and regional agreements. Today’s decision elevates the right where it belongs: universal recognition,” UN Environment Director Inger Andersen explained in a statement released this Thursday.
The recognition of the right to a healthy environment by these UN bodies, while not legally binding — meaning states have no legal obligation to comply — is expected to be a catalyst for action and empower ordinary people to hold their governments accountable responsible.
“So the recognition of this right is a victory we should celebrate. I thank the Member States and the thousands of civil society organizations and indigenous groups, as well as the tens of thousands of young people who fought relentlessly for this right. But now we must build on this victory and implement the law,” added Ms. Andersen.
CIFOR/Terry Sunderland
Restoring natural habitats can help address climate and biodiversity crises.
Triple response in a crisis
As mentioned by the UN Secretary General, the newly recognized right will be crucial in addressing the triple planetary crisis.
This refers to the three main interrelated environmental threats facing humanity today: climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss – all mentioned in the text of the resolution.
Each of these problems has its own causes and consequences, and they must be resolved if we are to have a viable future on Earth.
The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly evident through increased intensity and severity of droughts, water scarcity, wildfires, rising sea levels, floods, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms and declining biodiversity.
Meanwhile, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is the biggest cause of disease and premature death in the world, with more than seven million people dying prematurely each year due to pollution.
Finally, the reduction or disappearance of biodiversity—which includes animals, plants, and ecosystems—affects food supplies, access to clean water, and life as we know it.
* Countries that abstained: China, Russian Federation, Belarus, Cambodia, Iran, Syria, Kyrgyzstan and Ethiopia.
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