| Abstract [eng] |
The right to a healthy environment is receiving increasing attention from the international community. This is because this legal norm embodies a new qualitative dimension. It seeks not only to establish clear standards for the state of the environment that are necessary for the harmonious coexistence of humans and the environment. It also establishes a human rights dimension—the right to a healthy environment is a human right. This dual nature of the right poses challenges for legal regulation. Although the right is recognized at the political level, effective legal mechanisms designed to regulate and enforce this right have not been established. This stagnation in the development of legal norms creates the illusion of a right. As we witness the earth being ravaged by climate change, it is essential to take responsibility and create a new legal ideal that allows us to strive for an improved quality of life while contributing to the preservation of environmental well-being. The answer to this quest seems to lie in the content of the right to a healthy environment. Although it began to develop alongside the formation of environmental law and environmental policy, the right to a healthy environment remains a category that raises many questions: what is the structure of this right, its scope of application, and the means of ensuring it? In the practice of regional courts, this right is considered inseparable from the human rights system as a whole. The very fact that consideration has begun to be given to the independent existence of this right and the possibility of enshrining it as a human right points to a clear trend toward the creation of mechanisms that would enable the realization of this right and make it an integral part of the entire legal system. Emerging questions regarding the conflation of this right with environmental protection law or the right to health still prevent the identification of this right’s autonomy and the creation of a regulatory framework for it. However, a detailed analysis of judicial practice and scholarly works suggests an undeniable need for the right to a healthy environment to exist as an independent right. |
