International recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment: one step forward on human rights, two steps back on environmental protection

Abstract

The recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment by the United Nations is often viewed as a powerful catalyst for systemic changes towards environmental protection. The underlying logic is that by framing environmental values as a human right, the environment can acquire superior normative force. While there is extensive literature on how international recognition of such a right influences environmental protection, little scholarly attention has been paid to its dichotomous effects on human rights and the environment, respectively. This article seeks to fill this gap by examining different implications upon human rights and environmental regimes resulting from recognizing the right internationally. It demonstrates that the recognition reflects a paradigm shift for human rights law to be reconceptualized to address challenges and represent interests that classical liberalism did not adequately anticipate. For environmental protection, however, this article is less optimistic, arguing that recognizing the right does not bring anything innovative that is necessary to address global environmental concerns. The recognition not only is incapable of yielding substantial environmental results due to the inherent weaknesses of the right but also, more worryingly, prevents structural environmental transformation, which brings questions to the very human rights approach to the environment.