The human right to a healthy environment—time for the public health community to take urgent action

With growing recognition of the extent to which human activities are imperilling planetary health, it is critical to understand how international law can uphold a healthy environment. Drawing from 50 years of dedicated diplomacy, the United Nations General Assembly has recognised the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment under international law.1 The July 2022 resolution responds to the urgent dangers posed by climate change, environmental degradation, and bio-diversity loss. The public health community should seize the opportunity to implement this new right to promote planetary health.The past five decades have seen sweeping advances to recognise human rights in environmental health. The 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment provided an early conceptualisation of these rights and launched an international movement to protect the environment. The resulting Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment recognised that “man [sic] has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life,…
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