The Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment

A/HRC/RES/52/23View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2023.

What other versions does this mandate have?

3 versions · 2021–2023

2023A/HRC/RES/52/23The human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environmentLatestCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/76/300The human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environmentCompare with previous version
2021A/HRC/RES/48/13The human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

7 topics

Business Enterprises Corporate Social Responsibility Environment Environmental Protection Human Rights International Obligations Sustainable Development

What does this mandate say?

37 operative paragraphs

Welcomes the work undertaken by the Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, including in the implementation of his mandate, the comprehensive, transparent and inclusive consultations conducted with relevant stakeholders, his thematic reports, and the undertaking of country visits;

Also welcomes the work of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the issue of human rights and the environment, including its collaboration with the Secretary-General, the United Nations Environment Programme and other key partners, and its engagement with multilateral environmental agreements, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the Convention on Biological Diversity;

Further welcomes the work undertaken by the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in support of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, and in helping to clarify the relationship between human rights and the environment;

Calls upon States:

To respect, protect and fulfil human rights, including in all actions undertaken to address environmental challenges;

To adopt and implement strong laws ensuring, among other things, the rights to participation, to access to information and to justice, including to an effective remedy, in environmental matters;

To facilitate public awareness and participation in environmental decision-making, including of civil society, women, children, youth, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, peasants, older persons, persons with disabilities and others who depend directly on biodiversity and ecosystem services, by protecting all human rights, including the rights to freedom of expression and to freedom of peaceful assembly and association;

To implement fully their obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights without discrimination of any kind, including in the application of environmental laws and policies;

To promote a safe and enabling environment in which individuals, civil society organizations, including environmental human right defenders and those working on human rights and environmental issues can operate free from threats, hindrance and insecurity;

To provide for effective remedies for human rights violations and abuses, including those relating to the enjoyment of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, in accordance with their international obligations;

To establish, maintain and strengthen effective legal and institutional frameworks to regulate the activities of public and private actors in order to prevent, reduce and remedy harm to biodiversity and ecosystems, taking into account human rights obligations and commitments relating to the enjoyment of a clean, healthy and sustainable environment;

To take into account human rights obligations and commitments relating to the enjoyment of a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in the implementation of and follow-up to the Sustainable Development Goals, bearing in mind the integrated and multisectoral nature of the latter;

To increase funding and support for, and collaboration with, grass-roots women’s organizations working on environmental and human rights issues, and for the implementation of gender action plans under multilateral environmental agreements;

Encourages States:

To adopt integrated, intersecting and holistic national and local policies and an effective legal framework for the enjoyment of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment;

To address compliance with human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in the framework of human rights mechanisms, including the universal periodic review, and the submission of State party reports to relevant United Nations human rights treaty bodies;

To build capacities for 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 further development and implementation of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, in accordance with their respective mandates;

To explore ways to incorporate information on human rights and the environment in school curricula, in order to teach current and future generations to act as agents of change, including by taking into account the traditional knowledge of Indigenous Peoples;

To seek to ensure that projects supported by environmental finance mechanisms respect all human rights;

To collect disaggregated data on the effects of environmental harm, including the loss of biodiversity and the decline of ecosystem services, on persons in vulnerable situations;

To promote and accelerate human rights-based environmental action that is gender-responsive and includes gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, and takes into consideration the vulnerability of ecosystems and the needs of persons and communities in vulnerable situations;

To continue to share good practices in fulfilling human rights obligations relating to the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment through the good practices database maintained by the Special Rapporteur;

To facilitate expert exchange of knowledge and ideas, building synergies between the protection of human rights and the protection of the environment, and to promote coherence among different policy areas, bearing in mind an integrated and multisectoral approach and considering that efforts to protect the environment must fully respect other human rights obligations, including those relating to gender equality;

To strengthen their efforts to protect biodiversity, including by updating and implementing their national biodiversity strategies and action plans, thereby contributing to the achievement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity;

To build capacity within the judicial sector to understand the relationship between human rights and the environment;

To foster a responsible private business sector and to encourage corporate sustainability reporting while respecting the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and environmental standards, in accordance with relevant international agreements;

Recognizes the important role played by individuals and civil society organizations, including human rights defenders and environmental human right defenders, in the promotion and protection of human rights as they relate to the enjoyment of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, including biodiversity and ecosystems;

Also recognizes the important role of national human rights institutions to support and promote the enjoyment of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment;

Encourages relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, other international organizations, treaty bodies, academia and civil society organizations to promote the implementation of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment;

Requests the Special Rapporteur, in collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner:

To convene, before the end of 2023, a one-day expert seminar on the responsibility of business enterprises to respect the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, informed by the findings of the mandate holder;

To invite States and other relevant stakeholders, including academic experts, civil society organizations, business and finance representatives, to participate actively in the seminar;

To invite relevant experts of United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, treaty bodies, other international organizations and conventions to participate in the seminar;

To submit to the Human Rights Council, at its fifty-fifth session, a summary report on the above-mentioned seminar, including any recommendations stemming therefrom, for consideration of further follow-up action;

Stresses the need for enhanced cooperation among States, the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Development Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Office of the High Commissioner, the World Health Organization, the International Organization for Migration, the International Labour Organization and other relevant international and regional organizations, agencies, conventions and programmes, in accordance with their respective mandates, including by regularly exchanging knowledge and ideas and building synergies for the respect, promotion and protection of the human right to a clean healthy and sustainable environment, bearing in mind an integrated and multisectoral approach;

Calls upon all States to conserve, protect and restore healthy ecosystems and biodiversity and to ensure their sustainable management and use by applying a human rights-based approach that emphasizes participation, inclusion, transparency and accountability in the management of natural resources;

Decides to remain seized of the matter, in accordance with its annual programme of work.

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