Law Commons^™

Human Rights Environmentalism: Forging Common Ground, Gabriel Eckstein, Miriam Gitlin

Faculty Scholarship

Since the early 1970s, the international community has widely acknowledged the nexus between human rights and environmental protection. References to this association and even to a human right to some minimal quality of environment, can be found in numerous international instruments. The Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, for example, proclaims that human beings 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." Similarly, the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights states that "everyone shall have the right to live …