International Expert Seminar on Environment
and Human Rights
Multidimensional character of the environment has made it proved
that the environmental concerns are no longer being viewed exclusively
from the economic and angle of the pollution but seen rather as a
worldwide hazard threatening the planet and the whole of mankind,
as well as future generations. There is now a universal awareness
of the widespread, serious and complex character of environmental
problems, which call for adequate action at the national, regional
and international levels.
linkages between protection of human rights and protection of the
environment have long been recognized. The 1972 United Nations Conference
on the Human Environment declared that "man's environment, the
natural and the man-made, are essential to his well-being and to the
enjoyment of basic human rights--even the right to life itself."
In its decision 2001/111 the Commission
on Human Rights invited the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
to consider organizing a joint expert seminar "to review and
assess progress achieved since the United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development in promoting and protecting human rights in relation
to environmental questions and in the framework of Agenda 21."
The Seminar was held in Geneva on 16 January 2002 and was attended
by representatives of governments, civil society and international
organizations. It had before it the Conclusions
of a preparatory meeting of a group of experts held on the two
days prior to the Seminar. The experts had been asked to prepare a
review and assessment of the decade since the United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development (UNCED) as outlined in decision 2001/111.
To assist them in this task, the experts had before them six background
papers on various international and national developments relating
to human rights and environmental questions.
Background paper
1
Background paper
2
Background paper
3
Background paper
4
Background paper
5
Background paper
6
The
final report of the Seminar prepared in the light of States' comments,
is submitted to the Commission on Human Rights at its fifty-eighth
session.
