Climate change poses a life-threatening hazard to both humans and the environment. Its negative consequences jeopardize complete enjoyment and achievement of all human rights. Despite this, the UN Human Rights Council lacked a defined framework to address climate change comprehensively. In this sense, on 8 October, 2021, the UN Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 48/13. This resolution has a significant importance as it is for the first time that a UN body “Recognizes the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right”. Not surprisingly, the Council adopted the Resolution 48/14 which provided a mandate for a Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change. Therefore, given the impacts of these resolution on the international cooperation for climate change, we intend to address them in this article.
Recognition of Right to A Safe, Clean, Healthy And Sustainable Environment As A Human Right
The Human Rights Council (HRC) is a United Nations intergovernmental organization tasked with enhancing the promotion and protection of human rights across the world, as well as investigating and making recommendations on cases of human rights abuses. The United Nations Security Council is made up of 47 UN Member States that are chosen by absolute majority in the General Assembly and represent every area of the globe. Resolutions of the Human Rights Council are “Political Expression” that represent the Council’s members’ (or the majority of them) positions on certain subjects and circumstances (UN news,2021). such documents are drafted and negotiated among States with to advance specific human rights issues. Resolutions are drafted by a “core group”. In this case, Costa Rica, the Maldives, Morocco, Slovenia, and Switzerland were the states who submitted resolution 48/13 to the HRC for approval, declaring for the first time that enjoying a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is truly a human right (Ibid).
In the resolution, the HRC explicitly recognizes the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right. Also it considers it as important for the enjoyment of human rights (HRC, 2021). In addition, the HRC notes that “the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment is related to other rights that are in accordance with existing international law” (Ibid).
Besides, HRC goes further and encourages States to (Ibid) ;
“(a) To build capacities for the efforts to protect the environment in order to fulfil their human rights obligations and commitments, and to enhance cooperation with other States, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the rest of the United Nations system and other relevant international and regional organizations, agencies, convention secretariats and programmes, and relevant non-State stakeholders, including civil society, national human rights institutions and business, on the implementation of the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, in accordance with their respective mandates;
(b) To continue to share good practices in fulfilling human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, including by exchanging knowledge and ideas, building synergies between the protection of human rights and the protection of the environment, bearing in mind an integrated and multi-sectoral approach and considering that efforts to protect the environment must fully respect other human rights obligations, including those related to gender equality;
(c) To adopt policies for the enjoyment of the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment as appropriate, including with respect to biodiversity and ecosystems;
(d) To continue to take into account human rights obligations and commitments relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment in the implementation of and follow-up to the Sustainable Development Goals, bearing in mind the integrated and multi-sectoral nature of the latter;”
UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change
The Human Rights Council appoints Special Rapporteurs for their competence to address a specific human rights issue from a thematic or country-specific viewpoint. The duration of their mandate is restricted to a maximum of six years. They are part of the Human Rights Council’s Special Procedures (climate rights,2021).
Special Rapporteurs can carry out a variety of tasks, including conducting country visits, preparing annual reports, issuing statements, sharing best practices and policy guidance, producing amici briefs for contentious litigation, receiving individual communications from individuals whose rights have been violated, and requesting responses and action from states in the event of abuses (Ibid).
Several Special Procedures within the Human Rights Council have examined climate change from various angles in recent years. Previous and present Special Rapporteurs on human rights and the environment have made significant contributions to our understanding of the interconnections between climate change and human rights. However, it appears that a consistent human rights-based response to climate change is absent (Ibid).
Therefore, the Resolution 48/14 (A/HRC/48/L.27) on the Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, adopted by a vote of 42 in favor, 1 against and 4 abstentions. In the resolution, the HRC decides to appoint, for a period of three years, a Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, whose mandate, inter alia, includes to report annually to the Human Rights Council, starting from its fiftieth session, and to the General Assembly at its seventy-seventh session (Reliefweb,2021).
The Council also requests the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council to conduct a study and to prepare a report, in close cooperation with the Special Rapporteur, on the impact of new technologies for climate protection on the enjoyment of human rights, and to submit the report to the Council at its fifty-fourth session (Ibid).
The results of the vote were as follows (Ibid):
The states who were in favor include 42 states as follow; Argentina, Austria, Armenia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Fiji, France, Gabon, Germany; Indonesia, Italy, Libya, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mexico, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Republic of Korea, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan and Venezuela. Also, only Russian Federation opposed adoption of the resolution. And China, Eritrea, India and Japan were abstentions.
The new mandate holder has been entrusted with addressing both aspects of the complicated connection between human rights protection and climate action. (Savaresi, 2021) The Rapporteur will produce recommendations over the next three years on how to address and avoid the negative consequences of climate change on human rights, as well as measures to enhance the integration of human rights concerns into climate policies and law. The person in charge of the mandate will also make suggestions on how to incorporate human rights into the design and execution of mitigation and adaptation policies, practices, investments, and initiatives (Ibid).
Concluding Remarks
HRC expressed a clear evidence of growing awareness of the need to properly incorporate human rights considerations into environmental law and policy-making on issues such as biodiversity and climate change by adopting Resolutions 48/13 and 48/14. These resolutions follow a new wave of global advocacy aimed at closing the accountability and enforcement gaps that afflict environmental governance at both the international and domestic levels (Ibid).
Therefore, it is recommended that state officials consider the issue of climate change within their policy more seriously as the new special rapporteur would monitor the activities of states in this respect.
Bibliography
Climate rights,2021, “Creation of a new UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change”, available at < https://climaterights.org/our-work/unfccc/creation-of-un-special-rapporteur-on-human-rights-and-climate-change/ >
HRC, 2021, “J.C. and Others v. Belgium (no. 11625/17)”, 12 Octobor 2021.
Reliefweb,2021 ,” Human Rights Council appoints a Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights in the context of climate change and a Special Rapporteur to monitor the situation of human rights in Burundi”, accessed 20 October 2021 < https://reliefweb.int/report/burundi/human-rights-council-appoints-special-rapporteur-protection-human-rights-context >.
Savaresi ,2021, “The UN HRC recognizes the right to a healthy environment and appoints a new Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change. What does it all mean?”, available at <https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-un-hrc-recognizes-the-right-to-a-healthy-environment-and-appoints-a-new-special-rapporteur-on-human-rights-and-climate-change-what-does-it-all-mean/ >
UN news, 2021, “The right to a clean and healthy environment: 6 things you need to know”, accessed 19 October 2021 < https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/10/1103082 >.
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
