The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution recognizing the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right. The UNGA calls on states, international organizations, businesses and other stakeholders to “step up their efforts” to ensure a clean, healthy and sustainable environment for all.
The resolution (A/76/L.75) notes that the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is “linked to other rights and to applicable international law” and affirms that its promotion “requires the full implementation of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) “under the principles of international environmental law”.
The UNGA adopted the resolution on July 28, 2022, by a recorded vote of 161 votes in favor and zero against. Eight member states – Belarus, Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Russian Federation and Syria – abstained.
Originally proposed by Costa Rica, the Maldives, Morocco, Slovenia and Switzerland, then co-sponsored by more than 100 countries, the UNGA resolution is based on similar text adopted by the Human Rights Council. Human Rights (HRC) in October 2021. , which represented the first official global recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
Presenting the text at the UNGA meeting, the Costa Rican representative stressed that in the context of a triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, the universal recognition of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment offers a “powerful” and “effective” response that could catalyze transformative change.
Several delegations highlighted the lack of a common international understanding of the content and scope of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The representative of the Russian Federation underlined that States “can speak of a legally recognized right only after this right is recognized exclusively in international treaties”. Pakistan called the resolution “a political text, not a legal assertion of the Assembly”.
In a statement, UN Secretary-General António Guterres hailed the resolution as a “historic development”, noting that it will help to: reduce environmental injustices; fill protection gaps and empower people, especially those in vulnerable situations, including environmental human rights defenders, children, youth, women and indigenous peoples; and accelerate the implementation of Member States’ obligations and commitments on the environment and human rights.
Describing the resolution as “a victory for people and the planet”, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Inger Andersen, said that the full implementation of this right “[] action on the triple planetary crisis, provided[e] a more predictable and consistent global regulatory environment for business, and protect[] those who defend nature.
According to Andersen, the resolution “had been in the works for five decades.” From an “anchor point” in the Stockholm Declaration of 1972, where Member States recognized the right to “an environment of a quality which permits a life in dignity and well-being”, she said, countries have incorporated the law into constitutions, national laws and regional agreements, and in 2021 the United Nations Human Rights Council elevated its status to that of “universal recognition”.
Most recently, in June 2022, UN Member States and stakeholders issued a call to recognize and implement the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as part of the Stockholm+ meeting outcomes. 50, which included ten recommendations “to accelerate action towards a healthy planet for the prosperity of all.
In an interview ahead of the UNGA vote, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, David Boyd, noted that while not legally binding, UNGA resolutions can serve as catalysts for action. He said the 2010 UNGA resolution on the human rights to water and sanitation has resulted in “a cascade of positive changes that have improved the lives of millions”, and hoped that the recognition of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment “increases and improves the quality of life of people everywhere on the planet”. A UNEP press release suggests that the UNGA resolution could spur countries “to enshrine the right to a healthy environment in […] regional constitutions and treaties,” which “would allow people to challenge environmentally destructive policies under human rights law.” [UN News Story]
