The Human Right to Development and the Environmental Justice: An Aspect of Environmental Law

Abstract

The Objective of this study is to examine the international legal regime on the right to development as a human right and its implication for environmental justice in the context of Environmental Law. This study involves an examination of the relevant international Declarations and Conventions.

Law is a regulation of human conduct so the Professors of Jurisprudence say in the broad sense. Environmental law in particular is an instrument containing a body of rules to protect and improve environment and control or prevent any act or omission causing environmental destruction and conservation of natural resources. Today the protection of environment is a global issue which concerns all countries irrespective of their size, level of development or ideology. It refers to the principle of sustainable development accepted as a key element in the reconciliation between the values of environment and needs of development in modern times.

The idea of integrated human rights as an international concern was first declared in the Charter of the United Nations in 1945 and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and later in subsequent international instruments. Accordingly, unity of all rights- civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights were recognized. In 1986 UN General Assembly adopted Declaration on the Right to Devel opment which marks the culmination of a long process of international campaigning for right to development which was endorsed by the UN Vienna Declaration in 1993 and the subsequent international instruments. The Declaration on the Right to Development elaborates the point that the approach to development under the Declaration is substan tially different from the usual approach to economic development pre-occupied with the growth of output of material product and marketable services. The right to development refers to a process of development which leads to the realization of human rights and of all of them together and which has to be carried out in a manner known as rights- based, in accordance with the international human rights standards, as a participatory, non discriminatory, accountable and transparent process with equity in decision making and the sharing of fruits of the process. According to the Declaration, the right to develop ment is a right of human beings but with concomitant individual and collective obliga tions. The States are also charged with the responsibility for the creation of national and international conditions favourable to the realization of the right to development.

However, during the past decades, the right to development has been transformed to a multi- dimensional human right aimed at contributing to the protection of economic, social and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights. Right to development is recognized as a comprehensive economic, social and political process which pursues constant improvement of the well being of human beings. However, the right to develop ment should be fulfilled so as to equitably meet the social, developmental and environ mental needs of the present and future generations. Thus, the time has come to think of a right to sustainable development, the expression explicitly referred to in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in order to reconcile to debate on the right to environment and the right to development in an effort towards environmental justice.