The Interrelationship Between Environment and Human Rights: An Overview on Legal Context

Abstract

Every year more than two million people met the tragic end of their lives across the world for different causes. Thousands of individuals suffer from pollutionrelated illnesses. Ecosystems, for water scarcity, improper management of natural disasters, and disposal of toxic and hazardous products are degrading across the world due to environmental pollution. Climate change has an adverse impact on human health. These facts indicate that environmental and human-rights are closely related. The UN attempts to tackle environmental issues-the Stockholm and Rio Declaration--illustrate the importance of the link between human rights and dignity, and the environment. Already 69 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have been passed but human rights are till facing serious crisis. This crisis impacts on environment and human right to the environment. The article aims to focus the environmental concerns in human rights discourse; to explore the relationship between human rights and environmental rights in light of the worsening global environmental situation, and to encourage the excellent practices pertaining to implementation of human rights obligations and responsibilities for informing and strengthening the development of overall environmental issues. The article makes use of secondary data i.e. books, articles, different national and international law reports.