Environment and Human Rights

This research programme explores the interrelationship between the environment and human rights.

The links between human rights and environmental protection have been posited for several decades at both international and national levels. As the UN Division of Environmental Law and Conventions (DELC) has observed, an integrated approach to human rights and the environment typically involves the recognition that a level of environmental protection is necessary as a foundation for the enjoyment of human rights and that access to justice in environmental matters, including access to information and decision-making participation, is necessary in environmental protection. The projects in this programme examine the intersection between human rights, including contestations over such linkages, environmental legal mobilisation and empowerment, and the human rights implications of environmental degradation and pollution.