This document discusses the right to environment as a human right. It outlines several key environmental rights such as the right to clean air and water. The document traces the development of environmental rights from international agreements like the Stockholm Declaration to laws in India protecting the environment. Both substantive rights to a healthy environment and procedural rights to access information are examined. The conclusion emphasizes the close relationship between human rights and the environment, and how recognizing this connection can better protect human dignity.

1. RIGHT TO ENVIRONMENT
SEMINAR
PRAFULLAL OTTAPPILAVULLATHIL
UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS

2. All human beings depend on the environment in which we live.

3. Preservation of unique sites.
What environmental rights could be protected ?
Right to a clean
Healthy environment
Right to clean air
Right to safe drinking water
Right to natural food
Right to clothes without toxins
Right to adequate standard of living and adequate housing
Right to a safe and healthy workplace
Freedom from pollution

4. INTRODUCTION
All human beings depend on the environment in which we live as a
result right to environment has been recognized as human right. But
also upon the behavior of each individual right to environment is
categorized as a third generation human right or solidarity rights.
,
Of late the worldwide society has amplified its alertness on the
relationship between environmental dilapidation and human rights
abuses. Exercise and enjoyment of Human Rights by all the people is
necessary for full development as human beings. Human Rights help
us to enlarge our inherent traits, aptitude, talent and scruples to meet
our objects and religious needs. Life, livelihoods, culture and society,
are elementary aspects of human subsistence and their maintenance is
a fundamental human right.

5. Extreme human rights cannot be enjoyed at all if the environment
becomes impaired past a certain grave plane. The entire of community
might in such a case expire collectively with all its culture. The poorer the
environment becomes the more impaired are human rights and vice
versa.
Environmental protection and human rights were viewed as separate
areas by governmental institutions and non-governmental organizations
alike at both national and international levels. The environmental issues
in different regions of the world are now being accepted as having major
human rights implications by the global society with growing
globalization. The correlation between the expansion of science and
technology and human rights has already been on the program of
diverse United Nations bodies for decades.

6. The concept of right to environment or environmental right is an
evolving norm and is difficult to provide a definite meaning ,this is
because in most of the legal systems and legal instruments at
international level offers a right to environment with certain
qualifications such as Clean, safe, satisfactory, healthy, viable, decent
and sustainable.
Hence it is a bundle of interests and claims available to a person
from his environment. It deals with rights accrued to persons as
regards the environment
RIGHT TO ENVIRONMENT: CONCEPT
Individuals and groups not only have the right to an adequate
environment but also the duty to protect and improve the
environment. This responsibility is not only towards other individuals
or the community in which they live but towards mankind as a whole
and even “future generations.”

7. Human rights and the environment are intertwined; human rights cannot be
enjoyed without a safe, clean and healthy environment; and sustainable
environmental governance cannot exist without the establishment of and
respect for human rights. This relationship is increasingly recognized, as
the right to a healthy environment is enshrined in over 100 constitutions.

8. There are several established human rights related to the environment.
Environmental rights are composed of substantive rights
(fundamental rights) and procedural rights (tools used to
achieve substantial rights).

9. Substantive rights
Substantive are those in which the environment has a direct effect
on the existence or the enjoyment of the right itself. Substantive rights
comprise of: civil and political rights, such as the rights to life, freedom of
association and freedom from discrimination; economic and social rights
such as rights to health, food and an adequate standard of living; cultural
rights such as rights to access religious sites; and collective rights affected
by environmental degradation, such as the rights of indigenous peoples.

10. Procedural rights
Procedural rights prescribe formal steps to be taken in enforcing
legal rights. Procedural rights include 3 fundamental access
rights: access to information, public participation, and access to
justice.

11. Various interrelated rights as the part of
right to environment
Right to a secure, healthy and ecologically Sound
environment.
Non-discrimination in regard to actions and decisions that affect the
environment.
Right to an environment adequate to meet equitably the needs of present
generations and that does not impair the rights of future generations to
meet equitably their needs.
The right to protection and preservation of the air soil, water, sea-ice,
flora and fauna and the essential processes and areas necessary to
maintain biological diversity and ecosystems.
The right to the highest attainable standard of health free from
environmental harm

12. The right to safe and healthy food and water adequate to their well-being.
The right to a safe and healthy working environment.
The right to adequate housing, land tenure and living conditions in a secure,
healthy and ecologically sound environment.
The right to hold and express opinions and to disseminate ideas and
information regarding the environment.
The right to environmental and human rights education.

13. DEVELOPMENT OF RIGHT TO ENVIRONMENT
AT INTERNATIONAL LEVEL
After World War Two, the reconstruction of the economy and lasting
peace were the first priorities; this included the guarantee of civil and
political as well as social and economic human rights.
However, there are few international documents which directly refer to
right to environment such as Stockholm Declaration and Rio
Declaration.

17. The Stockholm Declaration proclaims in paragraph 3 its
concern about:
Growing evidence of man-made harm in many regions of the
earth: dangerous levels of pollution in water, air, earth and living beings;
major and undesirable disturbances to the ecological balance of the
biosphere, destruction and depletion of irreplaceable resources, and
gross deficiencies harmful to the physical, mental and social health of
the man, in the man-made environment, particularly in the living and
working environment.

18. Rio Declaration

20. Human beings “are entitled to a healthy and productive life in
harmony with nature” and provides that states should effectively
cooperate to discourage or prevent the relocation and transfer to
other states of any activities and substances that inter alia, are
found to be harmful to human health.

22. Indian scenario
India came to be felt only after the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984, yet it
began concentrating on the problem of pollution soon after the
Stockholm conference. India parliament passed many statutes to protect
and improve the environment
Wildlife (protection) Act, 1972
Water (prevention and control of pollution)
Act, 1974
Forest (conservation) Act, 1989
Air (prevention and control of pollution) Act,1981
Further the constitutional (forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 incorporated
two significant articles viz. Article 48-A and 51A (g) thereby making the Indian
Constitution the first in the world conferring constitutional status to the
environment protection.

23. Conclusion
It is evident that environmental and human rights are closely related.
The development of the relationship between human rights and the
environment would facilitate the merging of human rights principles within an
environmental scale. The human rights would be strengthened by the
amalgamation of environmental concerns providing victims of environmental
dilapidation the opportunity of access to justice and enabling the expansion
of the scope of human rights protection and generation of concrete solutions
for cases of degradation
Connecting human rights and the environment brings victims of
environmental degradation nearer to the mechanisms of protection that are
provided for by human rights. As we increasingly recognize the serious impact
of a degraded environment on human health and well being, we are better
placed to adjust our policies and cultural practices to reflect our enhanced
understanding. As a result, we should be able to protect human rights and
human dignity within its broader social, economic and cultural context by
drawing from and contributing to those who are actively engaged in the
environmental and public health arenas