In the name of human rights

Human rights refer to the “basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. The victims of environmental degradation tend to belong to more vulnerable sectors of society -racial and ethnic minorities and the poor-who regularly carry a disproportionate burden of such abuse. Increasingly, many basic human rights are being placed at risk, as the right to health affected by contamination of resources, or the right to property and culture compromised by commercial intrusion into indigenous lands. Despite the evidence the relationship between environmental degradation and human suffering, human rights violations and environmental degradation have been treated by most organizations and governments as unrelated issues. Just as human rights advocates have tended to place only civil and political rights onto their agendas, environmentalists have tended to focus primarily on natural resource preservation without addressing human impacts of environmental abuse. As a result, victims of environmental degradation are unprotected by the laws and mechanisms established to address human rights abuses. This paper takes to bring together contributions from human rights and environmental experts who have devoted much of their work to unifying these two spheres, particularly in the legal arena. It presents a variety of issues and approaches that address human rights and environmental links, demonstrating the growing interrelationship between human rights law and environmental advocacy. Linking Human Rights and Environment is a valuable sourcebook that explores the uncharted territory that lies between environmental and human rights. Therefore, this paper examines Human rights and environmental issues.