Book contents
- Towards the Environmental Minimum
- Towards the Environmental Minimum
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Introducing the Environmental Minimum
- 2 Environmental Human Rights
- 3 The Environmental Minimum
- Part II The Environmental Minimum under the ECHR
- Part III Beyond the European Convention
- Part IV Beyond Human Rights Law
- Appendix: Data Methodology
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Environmental Human Rights
from Part I - Introducing the Environmental Minimum
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 August 2021
- Towards the Environmental Minimum
- Towards the Environmental Minimum
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Introducing the Environmental Minimum
- 2 Environmental Human Rights
- 3 The Environmental Minimum
- Part II The Environmental Minimum under the ECHR
- Part III Beyond the European Convention
- Part IV Beyond Human Rights Law
- Appendix: Data Methodology
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The chapter argues that a commitment to human rights necessarily entails basic environmental protection duties as a matter of political morality. This is because egregious forms of environmental harm critically undermine the fundamental values that underpin human rights, chiefly human dignity and autonomy. Human rights must therefore contain a sub-category of protections which we can conceptualise as environmental human rights. The human interests that environmental human rights protect are the environmental conditions necessary for the preservation and flourishing of human life, namely clean water, food, air, and soil within a functioning ecosystem that includes diverse species of plants and wildlife. Those who challenge these rights as vague overlook the significant room for agreement in the pursuit of a comprehensive and universal notion of a ‘sound’ environment. Meanwhile, converns over potential conflicts with other rights are overstated, because balancing of competing interests is a pervasive and well-established feature of human rights law and contemporary environmental regulations are already being challenged on the basis of competing rights, for instance to property.
Keywords
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- Towards the Environmental MinimumEnvironmental Protection through Human Rights, pp. 35 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021