“The right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment - what does it mean for States, for rights-holders and for nature?”

Good afternoon, Excellencies and colleagues.

I would like to thank the Governments of Switzerland and Liechtenstein, the Universal Rights Group, and the Permanent Missions of Fiji, Iceland, Marshall Islands, Mexico and Thailand for inviting me to the eighth Glion Human Rights Dialogue. I am very pleased to take part in this event at such a crucial moment.

Our planet – and our future – is in crisis. We have heard repeated calls from experts to take concrete and tangible action to protect the environment before it is too late. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reminded us of this urgency, highlighting the severe and irreversible impacts of global warming.

The UN Secretary-General has also strongly supported worldwide pleas for an urgent response to the crisis through his Call to Action for Human Rights and Our Common Agenda.

Last year’s recognition by the Human Rights Council of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a very important step in the right direction. I commend the States behind resolution 48/13 and all those who supported it. I urge them to do the same should the matter come before the UN General Assembly.

Today, I call upon you to commit yourselves fully to the task of making the right to a healthy environment a reality for all people.

History books can either remember you taking action to protect the environment when it was most needed, or condemning current and future generations to a world crushed by climate change, pollution, nature loss and their many implications for human rights.

We have a choice. We need to decide wisely and act with urgency.

I am aware that many questions arose during the negotiations of resolution 48/13 – some of which we will attempt to address during this dialogue. What does the Human Rights Council recognition the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment concretely mean for us all? What does it mean for States, for people and for nature?

All States already have obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights. This extends to protecting people from foreseeable and preventable human rights harms caused by all forms of environmental degradation.

All human rights depend on a healthy environment. We cannot be healthy, eat adequate and nutritious food, drink clean water and breathe clear air without it.

The Council’s recognition of this fact, and of the right to a healthy environment, strengthens existing systems that are already in place to protect people from environmental degradation and its human rights impacts. We know that the recognition of this right is an important step toward ensuring greater consistency, transparency, accountability and resources for its implementation.

But we have a long way to go.

Even though most States have already recognized and committed to the right to a healthy environment, it is far from a reality for most people.

For people everywhere, the Council resolution reaffirms and strengthens their rights to healthy ecosystems, clean air and water, a safe and stable climate, adequate and nutritious food, and a non-toxic environment as well as to participation, access to information and access to justice in environmental matters.

For States, the right to a healthy environment obligates them to take both preventive and responsive action to promote, protect and uphold these rights. They also need to ensure that businesses and other actors uphold them and provide access to remedy when these rights are infringed upon.

Colleagues,

The triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss, and pollution - the greatest threat to human rights of our era – is increasingly being addressed through a human rights lens.  Human Rights Council resolution 48/13 gives both States and people around the world an important tool to do so.

For environmental human rights defenders, recognition of the right to a healthy environment by the Council is an important milestone, a rallying point and a crucial tool. For indigenous peoples, it adds to the framework intended to safeguard their rights, culture, and livelihoods, and contributes to conserving nature and its biodiversity both for current and future generations.

My Office is working tirelessly to advance the human right to a healthy environment, together with our civil society and UN partners. At the global level, we are developing UN system wide guidance for the protection of environmental human rights defenders, as well as a UN common narrative on the right to a healthy environment under the Secretary-General’s Call to Action for Human Rights.

Our colleagues in Kenya and Mexico have implemented a pilot project to drive environmental action based on human rights by taking targeted action to support defenders’ networks. Around the world, OHCHR field presences are working to integrate he right to a healthy environment - among other human rights – into the work of UN Country Teams.

I am delighted to deliver this keynote address alongside Phyllis Omido, with whom my Office in Kenya has had a long-standing collaboration. The fight of the Owino Uhuru community is a key example of how industrial development that is implemented without adequate human rights and environmental safeguards is harmful to communities and people who are already in a vulnerable situation – and how a rights-based approach can help them claim and defend their rights.

Elevating the voices of those most affected in order that they can claim their rights is at the core of our work. Assisting governments to promote and protect these rights is another crucial element. The recognition of the right to a healthy environment is one of the most important tools we have at our disposal today to make all of this a reality.

My Office stands ready to continue supporting your efforts on this important issue. I look forward to today’s discussions.

Thank you.