This year we marked the 50th anniversary of the Stockholm Declaration. That Declaration emphasized, in very clear terms, that we all have 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.”
Unfortunately, the shared vision of the Stockholm Declaration, the Rio Conventions and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development remains far from reach.
The unabated harm that humanity is inflicting on our common environment through climate change, pollution and nature and biodiversity loss is being returned to us in heavy measure of human suffering.
This triple planetary crisis is the greatest human rights challenge of our era.
It drives hunger, thirst, poverty, disease and death at scale.
And we know that those who experience these harms are often those least responsible for creating them.
We have a roadmap for addressing this inequity and this injustice.
A human rights-based approach to environmental crises can close the gap between environmental commitments and the often-unrealized action needed to meet them. It also emphasises the underpinning of legal obligations to act, rather than simply of discretionary policy.
In the context of environmental action, a rights-based approach requires cooperation and mobilization of resources. It also emphasises the need to guarantee meaningful and informed participation; and to ensure all people benefit from science and its applications.
It helps to overcome entrenched interests that place profit before people and planet, and to strengthen still inadequate accountability frameworks.
Under human rights law, States must respect, protect and fulfil human rights for all.
Businesses also have a responsibility to respect human rights.
And when human rights harms do occur, those affected must have access to justice and effective remedies.
The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlights that the tools we need to address climate change include rights-based approaches. The latest report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on the diverse values and valuation of nature affirms this finding.
According to the Platform, “recognizing and respecting the worldviews, values and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities and the institutions that support their rights, territories or interests… translates into better outcomes for people and nature.”
When we invest in inclusive environmental and social protection centred in human rights, such approaches empower people as agents of transformative change for nature.
Simply recognizing indigenous peoples’ rights to their traditional lands, resources and territories can already be transformational.
It improves conservation outcomes and promotes human wellbeing.
States should seize the opportunity of negotiating the post-2020 global biodiversity framework to commit to action that protects nature and human rights.
The General Assembly has such an opportunity too.
Today’s Moment for Nature corresponds with the negotiations of a General Assembly resolution on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
I urge you to adopt this resolution, a powerful signal that the nations of the world acknowledge the simple truth that our human rights are intrinsically bound to the health of our shared environment. My Office stands ready to work with you, the rest of the UN System and rights-holders everywhere to make the right to a healthy environment our lived reality.
Thank you.