Unquestionably, we must protect and preserve the environment as well as promote and protect human rights. In 1968, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution acknowledging the close relationship between the two.

The link between human rights and environmental protection was first acknowledged in the 1968 UN General Assembly resolution and further developed through the 1969 Declaration on Progress and Development in the Social Arena. This connection was formally established in the 1972 Stockholm Declaration[1], which recognized the right to a healthy environment as a fundamental human right. The declaration emphasized that every individual has the right to live in a quality environment that ensures dignity and well-being, along with the responsibility to protect and enhance it for future generations.

The Stockholm Declaration further affirmed that every individual has the right to freedom, equality, and a healthy environment that supports dignity and well-being. It also emphasized the responsibility to safeguard and enhance the environment for future generations. Although not legally binding, the Stockholm Declaration sparked formal discussions on the link between human rights and the environment. Despite its near-unanimous adoption, the right to a healthy environment has not yet become customary international law due to the lack of consistent state practice and legal recognition (opinio juris).

Some participants at the conference also voiced concerns about the declaration's ideological balance and environmental focus. This prompted international organizations and national governments to acknowledge the environment as a human right.

In the 1970s, both the European Parliamentary Conference on Human Rights and the Council of Europe debated elevating this right to formal recognition. A proposed Draft Additional Protocol to the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights sought to link environmental protection to the right to life, emphasizing the need for a healthy natural environment. Although the proposal was not adopted, these discussions helped advance the issue on the global agenda.

During the 1980s, a UNESCO Symposium on new human rights identified the right to a healthy and ecologically balanced environment as one of the “solidarity rights.” The following year, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights was adopted in Kenya.

According to the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) Experts Group on Environmental Law (1986), all individuals possess a fundamental right to an environment that ensures their health and well-being. Additionally, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (1986) proposed a Draft Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights, emphasizing Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights[2]. This protocol, later adopted in 1988, explicitly recognized the right to live in a healthy environment and imposed obligations on member states to safeguard, preserve, and enhance environmental conditions 

The United Nations acknowledged the right to a healthy environment through various resolutions and declarations adopted by the General Assembly and in conferences held under its auspices since the 1972 Stockholm Declaration, which first articulated this right. In 1990, during its 45th session, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution emphasizing the necessity of ensuring a healthy environment for individual well-being.

 Thus,  a reaffirmation of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, underscoring the importance of environmental protection as a fundamental human right 

The preparatory meetings for the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development reviewed proposals to explicitly recognize the right to a healthy environment in the final document named the Rio Declaration. However, this recognition was ultimately not included. The Declaration further reaffirmed the Stockholm Declaration and stated in Principle 1: “Human beings are at the center of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.”  

Although these instruments are not legally binding, an argument that the widespread and consistent reaffirmation of this language by nearly every nation across these instruments, without reservation, constitutes ‘evidence of a widespread and consistent state practice which has contributed to the establishment of a right to a healthy environment as a principle of customary international law’

Numerous states, both developed and developing nations from various regions, have formally recognized the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions or through specific legislative enactments, for instance;

The 1995 constitution of the Republic of Uganda, in adherence to the international environmental frameworks, has created mechanisms for the recognition, promotion and the protection of the right to a healthy environment.

National objectives and directive principles of state policy, objective XXVII provides for the environment, ‘The State shall promote sustainable development and public awareness of the need to manage land, air and water resources in a balanced and sustainable manner for the present and future generations’[3] Article 39 of the constitution provides for the right to a clean and healthy environment, this as enforced under Article 50, is a right to every individual the parliament has legislated various legislations to protect and promote the same right. The National Environment Act Cap 181, as enacted by the parliament aims to further the protection and promotion of the right to a clean environment.

Furthermore, various judicial decisions and constitutional interpretations have been carried out in the exercise of the judicial mandate (under article 126) to promote rights that include the right to a clean and healthy environment.

In the case of Minister of Health and Welfare v. Woodcarb (Pty) Ltd., a South African court affirmed the Minister of Health and Welfare's right to seek an order demanding that a sawmill cease emitting harmful gases. The court recognized the Minister’s administrative duties and acknowledged the right to pursue legal action when activities infringe on citizens' constitutional right to "an environment that is not harmful to health and well-being" under the interim South African Constitution. The court ruled that the defendant's unlicensed emissions unlawfully violated the constitutional right of neighboring residents to a healthy environment.

Thus, the right to a clean and healthy environment is interconnected with other human rights, thereby creating further obligations for individuals to observe the same right. Like other rights, breach of the right to clean and healthy environment entitles the victim to remedies, as decided by the court of competent jurisdiction. Different agencies of the state have been given obligations to exercise their mandates in compliance and in respect to the international environmental frameworks.

[1] Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, U.N. Doc. A/CONF. 48/14/Rev. 1 (1972), reprinted in 11 I.L.M. 1416 (1972) [hereinafter Stockholm Declaration].

[2] Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 1988).

[3] National objectives and directive principles of state policy, The 1995 constitution of the Republic of Uganda