The Human Right to the Environment Exploring the Historic Importance of UN General Assembly Resolution A/76/300: “The right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right.”

A Side-Event for the United Nations on 27 October 2022

Proposed by the Normandy Chair for Peace (NCP) and the International Council of Environmental Law (ICEL)

The adoption of A/76/300 on 26 July 2022 was an historic event. The triple crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution (set forth by the UN Report “Making Peace with nature,” https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature ) endanger sustainable development and challenge efforts to attain the Sustainable Development Goals. The Human Right to the Environment has the promise of restoring global support for the SDGs. This side event presents case studies from different regions about how the Human Right to the Environment can advance “the future we want” for a sustainable planet.

Le Chaire d’excellence CRNS du Droit de l’Environnement, (The Normandy Chair for Peace) (France) and the International Council of Environmental Law (founded in New Delhi in 1969, with jurists as members in all regions, in consultative status with ECOSOC, Secretariat in Madrid), have invited learned experts to share how the rights has benefited efforts for sustainable development. The UNGA took note that “the vast majority of States have recognized some form of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment” (A/76/300).

Justice Nambitha Dambuza of the Supreme Court of South Africa, Justice Antonio Herman Benjamin of the High Court of Brazil, and Justice Brian Preston, of the Land & Environment Court of New South Wales, Australia, will be in New York to speak at the Side Event. Prof. Emilie Gaillard, General Coordinator of Studies for the NCP, will address the relationship of the right to the environment to the rights of future generations. NCP and ICEL welcome the sponsorship of UN Missions with an interest in this recently recognized human right to the environment. As the UNGA debates issues of sustainability in all its work, knowing the scope of the right to the environment provides background that will enhance these deliberations.

NCP: Prof. Emilie Gaillard – Emilie.gaillart@sdciencedspo-rennes.fr
ICEL: Prof. Nicholas A. Robinson – nrobinson@law.pace.edu
Dr. Victor Tafur, ICEL Representative to the UN – vtafur@law.pace.edu