A Human Rights Approach to Environmental Health

This chapter explores the interface between health and the environment through the human rights prism, focusing on the environmental dimension of the right to health and on the now widely recognized right to a healthy, safe and clean environment. To this end, the chapter intends to offers a comprehensive analysis of the relevant provisions contained in human rights treaties and the obligations stemming therefrom. The review of these legal sources is completed by a critical assessment of the case law produced by regional human rights bodies and their evolutive interpretation of individual rights and corresponding State obligations in this field, with a special focus on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The aim of this legal analysis is to evaluate the added value of a human rights approach to environmental health litigation, with a view to best achieving the overarching goal of public health protection from environmental harm. The author highlights that human rights can be used in court as effective tools to protect public health against the adverse effects of environmental degradation and severe pollution. She also stresses that the potential of human rights bodies in the field of environmental health is yet fully unexpressed, but further positive developments towards the protection of collective and intergenerational rights related to the environment and human health can be achieved thanks to the dynamic and evolutive approach adopted by these bodies and through the virtuous circle created by judicial cross-fertilization.