A Right to a Healthful Environment – Humans and Habitats: Re–thinking Rights in an Age of Climate Change

Abstract: With the continuing international focus on climate change, this article asserts that the European Union is in a position of global leadership which should be employed in order to address some of the justice–based issues associated with climate impacts. One means of addressing the arguable inequitable effects associated with climate change is through a rights–based approach. Hence, this article re–visits the 1990s debate for a right to a healthful environment by integrating it within a climate change context. Section 1 discusses the notion that many have proposed that a right to a healthful environment is essential to human life but comments on some of the barriers to asserting this in full. The closest manifestations to this right in Europe are identified along with some contemporary climate–related policy reasons for advancing the right. In Section 2, some comments as to potential rights–holders are offered. It is asserted that both humans and non–humans can be environmental rights holders and that having a variety of rights holders offers a strategic means to achieve a variety of environmental objectives — as we can fit the right to the issue at hand. We proceed in Section 3 to examine whether the right to healthful environment exists per se, and offer some European and international examples. In its absence, it is argued that we can rely on existing human rights to attain climate–related justice and demonstrate through reference to case law where this has already been successful in the environment context. Justifications as to why such a right to environment could be used to assist communities affected by climate change are offered in Section 4, while Section 5 examines the relationship of the right to environment with other rights, such as the right to development. The issue of intra– and inter–generational equity, climate change and rights is analysed in Section 6 while we culminate in Section 7 with an evaluation of how best to domestically and internationally protect a right to environment. In the absence of the constitutionalisation of such a right in the EU, we propose referring to a variation of the right in the preambular provisions of EU treaties and Directives. The work ends with concluding remarks, noting again that the EU is best placed to take leadership on this issue, particularly in relation to global climate action.