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Shelton, Dinah --- "Human Rights and the Environment: Substantive Rights" [2010] ELECD 601; in Fitzmaurice, Malgosia; Ong, M. David; Merkouris, Panos (eds), "Research Handbook on International Environmental Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Environmental Law

Editor(s): Fitzmaurice, Malgosia; Ong, M. David; Merkouris, Panos

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201249

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: Human Rights and the Environment: Substantive Rights

Author(s): Shelton, Dinah

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

13 Human rights and the environment: substantive rights
Dinah Shelton



Introduction
International attention to the links between human rights and environmental protection has
expanded considerably in the past several decades. As early as the 1972 Stockholm
Conference on the Human Environment, participating states recognized that environmental
degradation hampers the enjoyment of internationally guaranteed human rights. In the
Conference's concluding declaration, the participating states referred to the fundamental
rights of freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life in an environment of a quality that
permits a life of dignity and well-being. The three headings of freedom, equality and adequate
conditions of life encompass recognized civil, political, economic and social rights. The UN
General Assembly reaffirmed the linkage between human rights and environmental protec-
tion in resolution 45/94, stating that all individuals are entitled to live in an environment
adequate for their health and well-being and calling for enhanced efforts to ensure a better
and healthier environment.
During the three decades since the Stockholm Conference, law-makers in many countries
have drafted constitutional and legislative provisions to add environmental rights, including
the right to an environment of a specified quality, such as `healthy', `safe', `secure', `clean'
or `ecologically sound'. Two international treaties also directly guarantee a right to environ-
mental quality (see infra). In addition to these direct substantive rights, environmental guar-
antees also emerge indirectly, because courts interpreting and enforcing other rights have
recognized that violations of them may be the result of a degraded environment. International
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