This book considers and clarifies many different facets of the international human right to a healthy environment.

This book brings together original and novel perspectives on major developments in human rights law and the environment in Africa. Focusing on African Union law, the book explores the core concepts and principles, theory and practice, accountability mechanisms and key issues challenging human rights law in the era of global environmental change. It, thus, extend the frontier of understanding in this fundamental area by building on existing scholarship on African human rights law and the protection of the environment, divulging concerns on redressing environmental and human rights protection issues in the context of economic growth and sustainable development. It further offers unique insight into the development, domestication and implementation challenges relating to human rights law and environmental governance in Africa. This long overdue interdisciplinary exploration of human rights law and the environment from an African perspective will be an indispensable reference point for academics, policymakers, practitioners and advocates of international human rights and environmental law in particular and international law, environmental politics and philosophy, and African studies in general. It is clear that there is much to do, study and share on this timely subject in the African context.

This book presents an in-depth analysis of how UN human rights institutions and mechanisms have addressed environmental protection, sustainable development, and climate change. Despite the increasing involvement of UN human rights bodies in addressing environmental degradation and climate change, a systematic review of the convergence between human rights and the environment in these bodies has not been carried out. Filing this lacuna, this book surveys the resolutions, general comments, concluding observations, decisions on individual communications and press releases. It identifies principles that have emerged, explores the ways in which human rights charter-based and treaty-based institutions are interpreting environmental principles and examines how they contribute to the emerging field of human rights and the environment. Given the disproportionate effect that polluting activities have on marginalized and vulnerable groups, Atapattu also discusses how these human rights mechanisms have addressed the impact on women, children, indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, and racial minorities. Written by a world-renowned expert on human rights and the environment, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars researching and teaching in this important field of study.

In light of the UN General AssemblyÕs recognition of the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, this erudite book presents in-depth analyses of the concrete operationalization of this right at the regional, national, and international level.

More than ten years after the adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, this book critically reviews the achievements, limits and next frontiers of business and human rights following the ‘protect, respect, remedy’ trichotomy. The UN Guiding Principles acted as a catalyst for hitherto unprecedented regulatory and judicial developments. The monograph by Macchi proposes a functionalist reading of the state’s duty to regulate the transnational activities of corporations in order to protect human rights and adopts a holistic approach to the corporate responsibility to respect, arguing that environmental and climate due diligence are inherent dimensions of human rights due diligence. In the volume emerging legislations are assessed on mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence, as well as the potential and limitations of a binding international treaty on business and human rights. The book also reviews groundbreaking litigation against transnational corporations, such as Lungowe v. Vedanta or Milieudefensie v. Shell, for their human rights and climate change impacts. The book is primarily targeted at academic and non-academic legal experts, as well as at researchers and students looking at business and human rights issues through the lenses of legal studies (particularly international law and European law), political sciences, business ethics, and management. Additionally, it should also find a readership among practitioners working in the public or private sector (consultants, CSR officers, legal officers, etc.) willing to familiarize themselves with the expanding areas of liability, financial and reputational risks connected to the social and environmental impacts of global supply chains. Chiara Macchi is currently Lecturer in Law at Wageningen University & Research in The Netherlands.

Energy is the driving force of human development and economic growth. The ceaseless demand for energy resources has triggered the development of extraction projects around the world. This, in turn, has exerted a significant pressure on natural resources as well as on the environment. Since the performance of human rights depends on the environment and on access to natural resources, this Study aims to show the extent to which the negative environmental impact arising from extraction operations prevents the effective realization of human rights. The analysis of substantive and procedural human rights in the light of the case law of international human rights courts provides all stakeholders involved in an energy extraction project with the tools and mechanisms to prevent environmental damage and to ensure the protection of human rights.

Poverty as a Crime