Recognizing the Right to a Healthy Environment (R2HE): Actor Constellations, Processes & What’s Next
This Symposium took place on 20 September 2022 and was one of the main impact products of the project SuperSustainable. It brought together active members of the Right to a Healthy Environment coalition, United Nations representatives and affected local people to reflect upon and discuss the process of recognizing the new human right.
In July 2022, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution recognizing the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Universally recognizing that every human being has access to a healthy environment is a significant step to protect human well-being in times of planetary crisis, climatic challenges and biodiversity depletion. This landmark decision opens new avenues for governments and civil society groups working at the grassroots, national and global levels to shape environmental law and policy in the future.
Behind this recognition stands a decades-long advocacy process involving a wide range of actors, including civil society organizations, UN special mandate holders, a core group of governments and business representatives. After the adoption of the Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment (2018), the Right to a Healthy Environment (R2HE) Coalition played a crucial role in advocating for the recognition of the new human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
In this symposium, we have reflected on this advocacy process leading to the adoption of the UNGA resolution: How was the R2HE coalition initiated? Which key strategies did the coalition rely on? What were the challenges and contentious issues within the coalition? How did civil society actors from the Global South perceive collaboration with partners from the Global North? What are the next steps after the R2HE has been recognized by the UN General Assembly? What leverage points can be used for transforming the UNGA recognition to safeguard biodiversity and healthy ecosystems that underpin the realization of the R2HE?