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The fundamental right to a healthy environment and climate-related lawsuitsElijah Sriroshan Sritharan, 2024, original scientific article
Abstract: Of all the prominent environmental issues in recent decades, global climate change is the most serious and has been widely regarded as the most pressing global environmental problem of the current age. Ongoing carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels are behind the planet’s warming trend. The fossil fuel industry has had a unique role in causing, shaping, advancing, and defining the current unsustainable fossil fuel-dependent global economy. Climate science demands we decarbonise our entire economy to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius. This paper builds its arguments starting from the universal recognition of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment by the United Nations General Assembly in 2022. A healthy and functioning environment is a precondition for human welfare. Recognition of the right to a healthy environment contributes to improved environmental outcomes, including cleaner air, enhanced access to safe drinking water and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. One notable development in recent years has been an explosion in climate litigation. The cases are being brought against governments and corporate emitters for breach of environmental and human rights obligations to pressure them to take more ambitious climate action. The two analysed cases from the Netherlands aptly illustrate that human rights arguments played a crucial role in the rulings.
Keywords: Human right to a healthy environment, Human rights-based climate change litigation, Urgenda case, hell judgement, sustainable development goals
Published in ReVIS: 06.02.2025; Views: 13; Downloads: 0
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