{"id":21503,"date":"2025-12-03T11:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/un-declares-clean-healthy-environment-human-right\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T11:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:07:10","slug":"un-declares-clean-healthy-environment-human-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/un-declares-clean-healthy-environment-human-right\/","title":{"rendered":"The UN declares access to a clean, healthy environment a universal human right"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 28 July the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recognising access to a sustainable, clean and healthy environment as a universal human right.<\/p>\n

The resolution is based on a text similar to the one adopted last year by the Human Rights Council<\/a>, and calls on states, international organisations and companies to step up their efforts to guarantee a healthy environment for everyone.<\/p>\n

What might change?<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to David Boyd, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, the decision will change the very nature of human rights: \u201chaving a right to a healthy environment changes people’s perspective, from \u2018begging’ to demanding that governments act,\u201d Boyd argues.<\/p>\n

The UN Secretary-General<\/a>, Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, said the initiative would help reduce environmental injustice, empower people \u2014 those in vulnerable situations above all \u2014 and prompt states to move faster in meeting their obligations.<\/p>\n

It is worth noting, though, that the resolution is not legally binding: countries are under no legal obligation to comply with it. But it can serve as an enabler for a healthy, clean environment, and as a route by which citizens can demand greater accountability from their governments on the matter.<\/p>\n

What threats does it address?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Humanity currently faces three principal environmental threats: climate change, pollution and the loss of biodiversity<\/b> \u2014 with air pollution the leading cause of illness and premature death worldwide, killing more than seven million people every year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 28 July the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recognising access to a sustainable, clean and healthy environment as a universal human right. The resolution is based on a text similar to the one adopted last year by the Human Rights Council, and calls on states, international organisations and companies to step up their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":390,"featured_media":4101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-coverage","category-digital-security"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/390"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmi.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}