© magda
stoczkiewicz
People all over the world are
claiming their rights. In early 2004, the
Ava Guarani people of
Argentina
marched 1,774 miles
to demand that the government return the
5,000 hectares of their ancestral territory
given to a global corporation for sugar
production. Cameroonian cocoa farmers have
taken a French forest company to court for
destroying their plantations in the mad
rush to export logs. Friends of the
Earth
Uruguay
and others
have organized a national referendum that
could make access to water a fundamental
human right. Maple sugar tappers in
the
United States
have
sued the Bush administration, claiming that
their livelihoods are threatened by the
global climate change to which the
United States
is a major
contributor. Tens of thousands of Europeans
are demanding the right to eat food free of
genetically modified organisms. And the
list goes on.
What all of these claims have
in common is that they are based on
people's environmental rights.
Environmental rights mean access to the
unspoiled natural resources that enable
survival, including land, shelter, food,
water and air. They also include more
purely ecological rights, including the
right for a certain beetle to survive or
the right for an individual to enjoy an
unspoiled landscape. In Friends of the
Earth's vision, environmental rights
include political rights like rights for
indigenous peoples and other
collectivities, the right to information
and participation in decision-making,
freedom of opinion and expression, and the
right to resist unwanted developments. We
also believe in the right to claim
reparations for violated rights, including
rights for climate refugees and others
displaced by environmental destruction, the
right to claim ecological debt, and the
right to environmental justice.
Many of these rights, particularly the
political ones, are well-established and
enshrined in various conventions and
agreements. We can credit the establishment
of some of these rights, as well as the
acceptance of others that are not yet
legally recognized, to the ongoing
struggles of communities and indigenous
peoples around the world. Other ‘new'
rights, including rights for climate
refugees, have arisen over recent years due
to the acceleration of economic
globalization and the accompanying
environmental destruction and social
disruption. Still others, like the right to
claim ecological debt, have emerged as the
result of years of campaigning by Friends
of the Earth and others for the recognition
of the impacts of northern resource
depletion and natural destruction in
southern countries. All of these rights are
equally important, and they are all
interdependent. Environmental rights are
human rights, as people's livelihoods,
their health, and sometimes their very
existence depend upon the quality of and
their access to the surrounding environment
as well as the recognition of their rights
to information, participation, security and
redress. Rights can be asserted in a
variety of ways: for example, by appealing
directly to the violating government,
international financial institution or
corporation; through international,
regional and national courts; by applying
public and media pressure; and by building
coalitions with others seeking similar
rights. This publication draws on case
studies from around the world to provide
information and inspiration about the
growing potential for rights-based
campaigning within the environmental
movement.
the development of human
rights
Over the past decades, human rights have
been identified and codified in a vast body
of international and regional agreements.
The best known of these is the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
which obliges members of the international
community to respect the rights of all
human beings to life, to an adequate
standard of living, to liberty and
security, to freedom of opinion and
expression, and to participate in the
government of his or her country. In 1976,
two additional International Covenants
entered into force under the auspices of
the United Nations, one covering Civil and
Political Rights and the other Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights.
Civil and political rights are often
considered the ‘first generation' of
rights, and are sometimes termed ‘negative
rights' as they require states to refrain
from actions such as torturing their
citizens or denying them free speech. The
‘second generation' of Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, on the other hand, are
often ‘positive', requiring governmental
action to provide goods and services like
housing and schools. Both the first and
second generations of human rights were
framed in response to the needs of
individuals whose rights were violated over
the previous decades, and today enjoy a
fairly high level of public acceptance, if
not governmental adherence.
the emergence of environmental
rights
In recent years, catalyzed by the
negative impacts of widespread economic
globalization on people and the environment
around the world, another category of
rights has arisen. These new rights often
apply to communities or groups of people
attempting to achieve healthy and
sustainable livelihoods in various parts of
the world. They are urgently needed, as the
projects and policies promoted by
international financial institutions, trade
bodies and transnational corporations often
trample people's rights to live in
sustainable societies.
In the name of ‘development' and ‘free
trade', governments and transnational
corporations are steadily seizing control
of land, water, forests and minerals. All
of this leads to environmental and human
rights violations such as the confiscation
of land, evictions, pollution, destruction
of natural resources, police presence,
militarization, violence, intimidation and
worse. Women very often bear the brunt of
these violations as they struggle to
protect and nourish their families. Those
who attempt to defend the environment,
including people from affected communities
and environmental campaigners, are also
often victims of intimidation and human
rights violations by vested political and
economic interests.
The same current economic globalization
policies that are threatening people and
their habitats around the world are also
not designed to allow people to decide upon
their own futures. Information about
development projects and plans is often
insufficient or nonexistent, and affected
people are often excluded from the relevant
decision-making processes.
Environmental rights go hand-in-hand
with civil and political rights.
Marginalized people around the world,
including women, people of color and
impoverished people in industrialized
countries, suffer from environmental
injustice by bearing the brunt of
pollution. As many of the case studies in
this publication show, the most egregious
environmental rights violations tend to,
foei be inflicted on peoples whose civil,
political, social and economic rights are
not respected. Friends of the Earth
International believes that a new ethic is
required, one that strives for
environmental justice and recognizes the
interdependence of humans and their
environments.
Environmental rights are complex in that
they require governments to protect the
environment, which often entails economic
measures like regulating corporate
activities, international trade, or
investments by international financial
institutions. The emerging need for rights
for victims of global climate change poses
a particular challenge to governments in
that they are being asked to restructure
economies and relinquish sovereignty by
taking part in international environmental
agreements such as the Kyoto Climate
Protocol.
environmental rights
legislation
On the official level, the link between
human and environmental rights was first
made in 1972 at the Stockholm Conference on
the Human Environment. The 1992 Earth
Summit in Rio de Janeiro helped to create a
normative framework for environmental and
human rights both in the principles set out
in the Rio Declaration and in the Agenda 21
Plan of Action. In 1994, the Special
Rapporteur on Human Rights and the
Environment for the Sub-Commission on the
Prevention of Discrimination and Protection
of Minorities released a groundbreaking,
detailed analysis of the relationship
between human rights and the environment,
concluding that environmental damage has an
adverse affect on the enjoyment of a series
of human rights, and that human rights
violations in turn damage the environment.
In the meantime, a series of UN
resolutions, court decisions and
international bodies have further shaped
and endorsed this general statement. To
date, however, there is little binding
legislation referring to environmental
human rights.
Furthermore, those suffering from
environmental rights violations do not
always have access to legal channels.
International human rights law, and in
particular environmental rights law, is
complicated, slow and has limited
enforceability. Not all states are not
party to the relevant regional or
international conventions, and their
citizens thus do not enjoy access to the
relevant international courts. Access to
international courts can generally only be
obtained when national remedies have been
exhausted. Even when a case does manage to
work its way up through the international
legal system, victories are still few and
far between. And then, even when the law
comes down on the side of those who have
been violated, governments do not always
take up their responsibilities to rectify
the situation.
Nonetheless, the existing human rights
declarations and covenants do carry
significant moral weight, and can be used
to bring global attention to violations
happening in the most remote corners of the
earth. Important regional and national
legislative initiatives exist, including
the Inter-American Convention on Human
Rights, the European Union's Charter of
European Rights and the new African Charter
of Human and Peoples' Rights, all of which
specifically acknowledge the right to a
healthy environment. Significant public
pressure can be exerted on governments
through the rulings of the courts that
enforce these and other international
rights laws. Affected communities are
learning to make use of these national and
international legal systems to bring
attention to their plights and strengthen
their campaigns for justice.
