At the forty-eighth session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), Member States adopted two new resolutions in a historic breakthrough. The first resolution recognizes the right of all to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Although this right has been recognized at the national level by the vast majority of countries, its recognition at the universal level remained challenging for several decades. SGI joined thousands of civil society organizations, social movements, local communities and Indigenous Peoples calling for this recognition by the United Nations, which should act as a catalyst for states and other stakeholders to respect, protect and fulfill the right to a healthy environment.
HRC48 Votes results for the Resolution on the Right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment
This historic resolution, although not legally binding, has the power to catalyze more ambitious action on environmental issues. As the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Environment David Boyd highlighted, “The best example we have of what kind of a difference these UN resolutions make is if we look back at the resolutions in 2010 that for the first time recognized the right to water. That was a catalyst for governments all over the world who added the right to water to their constitutions, their highest and strongest laws.” To Boyd’s point, Mexico added the right to water to its constitution in 2012 and worked to extend safe drinking water to over 1,000 rural communities.
More than 1300 civil society organizations called for the right to a healthy environment to be recognized.
For more than a decade, civil society organizations and Indigenous Peoples advocated for this mandate. From the start, faith voices highlighted the need to address climate justice and the impacts of climate change and climate action on human rights.
The second resolution established a new UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change. For more than a decade, civil society organizations and Indigenous Peoples advocated for this mandate. From the start, faith voices highlighted the need to address climate justice and the impacts of climate change and climate action on human rights. This historic breakthrough was also the result of the continued advocacy and work of the Small Island and Developing States (SIDS). SIDS gathered states across all regions of the world in support of this resolution, which signals a new era for rights-based climate policy.
The new Special Rapporteur, Dr Ian Fry, has been appointed in March 2022, during the 49th session of the Human Rights Council.
The Republic of the Marshall Islands introduces the resolution to create the new mandate on human rights and climate change.