The Universal Right to a Healthy Environment: «An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

In recent decades, it has become more and more evident that human rights and environmental protection are interrelated and interdependent: a healthy environment is necessary for the full enjoyment of human rights and the exercise of human rights (including rights to information, participation and access to justice) is crucial for environmental protection. This relationship has been recognized at every level of the world's legal systems, mainly through two paths: on the one hand, the 'greening' of existing human rights, on the other hand, the recognition of a human right to a healthy environment. Nowadays, despite its absence from the seminal human rights instruments (first and foremost the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), the right to a healthy environment is recognized in many countries and several regional human rights systems. Still, it has never been adopted in a universal human rights treaty or declaration. This contribution focuses on the role played (or not) by United Nations human rights bodies in recognition of the intrinsic link between the environment and the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights and in development of human rights norms relating to the environment, with a view to pinpointing evolving dynamics and emerging issues. In so doing, a special attention is devoted to the recent developments concerning a globally recognized human right to a healthy environment (legal status, advantages, instruments for recognition), in the practice of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment and of the General Assembly (Resolution "Towards a Global Pact for the Environment").