Evaluate the relevance for business of human rights provisions
in the context of environment protection
Contents
I. Introduction
II. Relationship between Human Rights and Environmental Protection
III. Environmental Human Rights
IV. Human Rights Approaches to Environmental Protection in Practice
V. Advantages and Disadvantages of a Human Rights Approach
VI. Conclusion
I.Introduction
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not mention pollution—environmental protection received scant attention in 1948. In those days the adverse impacts of environmental harm was not much felt by the people. The issue of environmental protection and human rights started from the UN Conference on Human Environment Stockholm Declaration” in 1972, in which, principle 1 states man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well being”. Since the Rio Declaration of Environment” in 1992, which lead to more important developments, the nexus were cautious in accepting that international environmental policy had developed into a regime of international law”. A number of cases and development that happened in this field demonstrate the rising universal awareness of urgent action at the regional, national, and international.
Recently, this issue is widely considered since the UK government published a White Paper, bringing rights home”together with the Human Rights Bill. The Human Rights Act 1998 introduces provisions that touch most areas of private and business life and unquestionably has the potential to bring about fundamental changes for British people, who will then be able to assert and enforce their rights under the Convention through all the ordinary United Kingdom courts and tribunals, rather than relying solely on a belated remedy from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This change will come at some practical cost. Once the convention is incorporated, there will undoubtedly be a protracted period of uncertainty and a flurry of case law” .On the other hand, in the words of Lord Scarman, it may be little more than an opportunity to freshen up the principles of common law” . Or the other, one must bear in mind the now notorious words of a senior Scottish judge, Lord McCluskey, who has cited the experience of the introduction of a similar Charter of Rights in Canada and the words of a Canadian senator that it will be a field day for crackpots, a pain in the neck for judges and a gold mine for lawyers” . Against that background, this article attempts to address the link between human rights and the environmental protection, review the relative cases in practice, and try to evaluate the relevance for business of human right in the context of environmental protection.
