The Fight for Human Rights Reaches a Green Milestone

The United Nations has just passed a historic resolution that declares that access to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a universal human right, ultimately altering the very nature of international human rights law.

“Governments have made promises to clean up the environment and address the climate emergency for decades but having a right to a healthy environment changes people’s perspective from ‘begging’ to demanding governments to act,” explains David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment.

A total of 161 countries were in favor, 0 against, and a mere 8 abstained during the voting to adopt the resolution. First presented by Costa Rica, the Maldives, Morocco, Slovenia and Switzerland, the text was co-sponsored by more than 100 countries. It promotes the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements designed to enforce existing international laws that already defend the right to a healthy environment. The resolution is designed to reduce environmental injustices, recognize that the impact of climate change has negative implications for the exercise of all human rights, and is crucial to addressing the triple planetary crisis – climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss.