Recognition of a Human Right to a Clean and Healthy Environment Essay

Recognition of a Human Right to a Clean and Healthy Environment - Essay Example Conversely, Article 11 of the San Salvador Protocol asserts that everyone has a right to live in a healthy environment and to have ready access to basic public services, and that in this effect; states are to promote preservation, protection and improvement of the environment. The relegating of the human right to a clean and healthy environment to states’ prerogatives means that environmental law is neither serious nor powerful in international law, and thereby sparking the need for international recognition as shall be seen in the essay, forthwith. According to Cassuto, the notion that the recognition of human right to clean and healthy environment as the only means by which environmental law are to become serious and powerful in international law is validated by the assigning of this right, a less important status. The historical underpinning of this development is that in the 1960s and 1970s, rights were assigned different categories . In light of the above, civil and political rights were considered first category rights while the second category rights comprised socio-economic rights. Solidarity rights in this case made up the third category. This development has made the inclusion of healthy and safe environment as rarity in the human rights framework since such efforts are seen as being relatable to the third category right. This failure to assign the right to a clean and healthy environment its own category of rights has always made concerns for environmental safety be taken as subservient. Again, the rationale that the consideration of human right to clean and healthy environment as the only way by which environmental law are to become binding and powerful in international law is underpinned by its ability to integrate and galvanize different concerns and methodologies within the human rights frameworks. According to Kurup2, the recognition and legislation of the human right to clean and healthy environment i n turn will help in the codification of a separate rights chapter, section or article. It is also at this juncture that the new right can be made either procedural or substantive. By the right to clean and healthy environment being made substantive, emphasis will have been placed on concerns of definitions, in light of the human right to a clean environment. Conversely, making the matter of human rights more procedural in nature means that more emphasis will centre on the human right to procedural information. It is only through the legislation of this right that the approach (whether procedural or substantive) to tackling environmental crises can be determined, at both international and domestic levels. Currently, there are no international standards and norms that can be used to brook a consensus on the two options. Conversely, Hannan3 advances the idea that the need to legislate the human right to environmental protection is necessitated by the fact that environmental protection is derived from existing rights and freedoms- with these rights being expendable towards environmental ends. This does not necessitate the need to create new substantive human right to a clean environment but implies that environmental safety is derived from existing human freedoms and liberties. In a different wavelength, the need to legally recognize human right to cl