Environmental Rights

Abstract

Abstract International law for the promotion and protection of human rights and international environmental law reflect two of the fundamental values and aims of modern international society. The primary objective of human rights law is to secure the self-actualization of every person, to protect each individual from abuse of power by state agents and to assure that basic needs can be met. States must also exercise due diligence to ensure that human rights are not violated by non-state actors. Environmental law, in turn, seeks to protect and preserve the basic living and non-living resources and ecological processes on which all life depends. It can thus be seen as an inherent part of the human rights agenda or as a broader and sometimes competing goal. In either case, unlike human rights law, international environmental law is primarily concerned with controlling the activities of non-state actors who are the predominant cause of environmental harm.

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