Every year, June 5th celebrates the UN World Environment Day (WED), promoting awareness for environmental protection since it was established in 1972 (marking the date of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment). WED 2019’s theme focuses on air pollution, considered the most important health issue of our time, causing an estimated 7 million premature deaths every year.
WED invites everyone to consider how changes in everyday life can reduce the burden of pollution on nature – and our own health. See more: http://worldenvironmentday.global/
From a legal perspective, environmental protection (including air pollution/quality) can find a legal basis in different provisions. At national level, many Constitutions around the world already enshrine a collective right to a healthy/clean environment. As pointed out by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, a failure of governments to ensure clear air “constitutes a violation of the rights to life, health and well-being, as well as the right to live in a healthy environment.” Therefore, such failures to ensure air quality could lead to litigation by citizens in order to uphold such rights. In addition, “air pollution” and “air quality” legislation is also common instruments adopted by many countries around the world.
At international level, many international instruments (binding and ‘soft-law’) apply to this issue. For instance, the UNFCCC and its mandate to mitigate climate change through reducing emissions of greenhouse gases; and the Sustainable Development Goals (in particular SDG 3.9), contain obligations and targets that are related to reducing air pollution. Further, since 2017 discussions are ongoing to develop a legally binding agreement under the UN that synthesizes the principles outlined in the Rio Declaration, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other instruments. A ‘Global Pact for the Environment’ could act as a third international Covenant, codifying international environmental principles just as the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) codified the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights of 1949. Such a Pact could achieve three main objectives:
1. Establish the universal right to an ecologically sound environment as a human right at the international level, able to be invoked in international, regional, and national courts of law;
2. Unify the guiding principles of international environmental law in one internally coherent legal document, clarifying points of tension in international environmental law that have arisen given the existing sectoral approach to environmental governance; and
3. Empower citizens to hold home and neighbour governments accountable for their environmental policies.
The UNGA adopted Resolution 72/277 “Towards a Global Pact for the Environment” on 10 May 2018, which mandates a workplan to develop the new instrument. Such a pact would provide an even stronger legal basis to hold governments accountable and empower citizens to demand environmental protection and justice. Read more: https://www.iucn.org/commissions/world-commission-environmental-law/our-work/global-pact-environment.
Fabiano de Andrade Correa 