Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment: Towards Full Legal Recognition

In the days where rights revolution is happening, new rights are prodused in addition to expanding of existing rights. The right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is one of these new rights. As a result of a process of approximately 50 years, the UNGA recognized this right on July 28, 2022 (Resolution A/RES/76/300). Delegations from a few supporting governments acknowledged the political and non-legal nature of the resolution, but they also pointed out that there is a lack of international consensus regarding the nature, scope, and foundation of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Thus, for a full “legal recognition” of the right to the environment, satisfactory clarification of at least the status and content of this right is necessary. The aim of this study is not to provide final answers to all of these issues. It does, though, aim to contribute to the debate on issues of the status and the process of full legal recognition and ensuring the universality of the right to a healthy environment, as well as on the methodological problems of the upcoming conceptualization of the right in question.