Do We Need an International Instrument for the Recognition of the Right to a Healthy Environment?

Environmental degradation is continuing globally despite various international environmental treaties. If the right to a healthy environment is recognised by a global instrument, this international recognition of this right could enhance the implementation and enforcement of various multilateral environmental agreements. Moreover, the international recognition of this right to a healthy environment could create a level playing field at the international level to ensure better balancing of competing interests. Furthermore, an international instrument for the recognition of this right is necessary to address many environmental challenges including climate change, the loss of biodiversity, marine pollution, long-range air pollution and plastic pollution which have global or trans-boundary dimensions. A second optional protocol to the ICESCR as an international instrument for the recognition of the right to a healthy environment could be adopted. It would be the best option for the adoption of an international instrument to recognise the right to a healthy environment.

Part III Conceptual Pillars, Ch.18 Precaution

This chapter describes the concept of precaution in international environmental law, which concerns anticipatory action in response to scientifically uncertain threats of environmental harm. Its most frequently referenced formulation can be found in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. The Rio Declaration's endorsement of precaution in Principle 15 introduced to international environmental law a new discourse over the appropriate evidentiary foundations of global environmental regulation. The chapter then focuses on four key questions (and attendant debates) regarding precaution that have been critical in understanding its role in international environmental law. These questions concern the meaning of precaution as a conceptual pillar of international environmental law; the legal status of precaution as a principle of international environmental law; the formulation and understanding of precaution evident from international environmental treaties and case law; and the consequences of applying precaution in decision-making concerning threats of environmental damage.