Bridget Lewis

It’s always a pleasure: Exploring productivity and pleasure in a writing group for early career academics

The professional development needs of early career academics (ECAs) are increasingly subject to scrutiny. The literature notes writing groups can be successful in increasing research outputs and improving research track records – a core concern for ECAs. However, the pressure on ECAs to publish takes the pleasure out of writing for many. We argue writing groups, created by and for ECAs, can provide an environment for ECAs to (re)produce pleasure in writing and participation in the processes of academic review and debate. In addition, our experience of a writing group was that it provided a platform of social and emotional support contributing to our personal well-being and professional development.

Human Rights Duties towards Future Generations and the Potential for Achieving Climate Justice

Human rights-based approaches to climate change promise to address the intergenerational injustices of climate change by incorporating an enhanced consideration of the needs of future generations. Yet, a number of questions arise when one contemplates how international human rights law might accommodate the rights of persons as yet unborn. Among them are the theoretical questions of whether it is possible for future generations to possess human rights and for present generations to owe them corresponding duties. Assuming that such a theoretical conceptualisation is possible, a number of legal issues are present in attempting to protect the rights of future generations within current international human rights law, including the question of how the rights of future generations can be balanced against those of current generations. The paper will examine a number of domestic measures designed to protect the rights of future generations and consider how such mechanisms might contribute to a rights-based approach to resolving intergenerational climate injustice.

Human Rights and Environmental Wrongs: Achieving Environmental Justice through Human Rights Law

The numerous interconnections between the environment and human rights are well established internationally. It is understood that environmental issues such as pollution, deforestation or the misuse of resources can impact on individuals’ and communities’enjoyment of fundamental rights, including the right to health, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to self‐determination and the right to life itself. These are rights which are guaranteed under international human rights law and in relation to which governments bear certain responsibilities. Further, environmental issues can also impact on governments’ capacity to protect and fulfil the rights of their citizens. In this way human rights and environmental protection can be constructed as being mutually supportive. In addition to these links between the environment and human rights, human rights principles arguably offer a framework for identifying and addressing environmental injustice. The justice implications of environmental problems are well documented and there are many examples where pollution, deforestation or other degradation disproportionately impact upon poorer neighbourhoods or areas populated by minority groups. On the international level, environmental injustice exists between developed and developing States, as well as between present and future generations who will inherit the environmental problems we are creating today. This paper investigates the role of human rights principles, laws and mechanisms in addressing these instances of environmental injustice and argues that the framework of human rights norms provides an approach to environmental governance which can help to minimise injustice and promote the interests of those groups which are most adversely affected. Further, it suggests that the human rights enforcement mechanisms which exist at international law could be utilised to lend weight to claims for more equitable environmental policies.

Environmental Dimensions of Human Rights

There are many well-recognised human rights which, due to their subject matter and purpose, possess an environmental dimension. The impact of the environment on human rights can be direct, in that a polluted or damaged environment will directly impinge upon a person’s ability to enjoy their rights, or indirect, in that poor environmental conditions will impede a government’s capacity to protect and fulfil the rights of its citizens. These rights can form the basis of a legal claim where an individual or community alleges that environmental degradation, or the failure of government to address it, amounts to a violation of their human rights as guaranteed under law. This chapter will explain a number of specific human rights and the environmental dimensions they possess. It will also provide an overview of a number of key cases in this area from various human rights regimes. By identifying the breadth of environmental content already contained in human rights law, this chapter lays an important foundation for the argument developed in the book that future work in environmental rights should concentrate on expanding and clarifying these existing environmental dimensions, rather than on pursuing a standalone environmental right.

The Role of Environmental Human Rights in Addressing Climate Change

The threat of widespread, potentially catastrophic environmental changes as a consequence of anthropogenic global warming represents a challenge for the international community of a magnitude not previously encountered by modern international law and institutions. Climate change threatens not only environmental systems, but also the human communities which depend on them. The broad range of environmental impacts generate an equally wide range of human impacts, and will interfere with the realisation of many human rights. It is therefore appropriate to ask what role environmental human rights can and should have in addressing the many challenges of climate change. This chapter begins this examination by providing an overview of the emergence of human rights-based approaches to climate change, illustrating some of the tensions surrounding the employment of human rights in such a context. This lays a foundation for further analysis in Chaps. 8 and 9, which will identify a number of limitations to a human rights-based approach to climate change, and consider whether these could be overcome through the adoption of a standalone environmental right.

Do We Need a New Environmental Human Right to Deal with Climate Change

The difficulties in applying existing human rights law to the complex challenges of climate change which were identified in the previous chapter might suggest that a new standalone environmental right is required to implement an effective human rights-based approach. This chapter challenges that assertion by analysing whether a new right could overcome the limitations of the existing framework, or offer new or enhanced benefits in tackling the human impacts of climate change. It is argued that there are significant difficulties defining the beneficiaries of a new right, as well as the corresponding duties and duty-bearers, in a way which captures the characteristics of climate change and its causes and effects, and which is practically useful to those affected by it. Further, the analysis draws on States’ previously expressed attitudes on the subject of human rights and climate change to argue that achieving adequate State support to enshrine a new right in international law is unlikely without a substantial shift in perceptions about our obligations towards the environment. It is concluded that efforts to improve human rights based-approaches to climate change ought to focus on enhancing the application of the existing framework, rather than pursuing a new environmental or climate-specific right.

The Theoretical Basis for Expanding Environmental Human Rights

The concept of a human right to an environment of a particular quality intuitively appeals to those who wish to secure greater protection for the natural world and to promote an enhanced understanding of humans’ relationship with it. Yet questions abound as to how such a right should be defined and how we can justify a good environment as something which ought to be characterised as a human right. This chapter considers a number of theories which explain what human rights are and why they warrant protection, and analyses whether any of them could support the notion of a right to a good environment. In seeking a theoretical rationale for the right to a good environment, the chapter identifies the need to exclude explanations which rely on the environmental dimensions of other rights, on the basis that human rights require some independent justification beyond merely providing instrumental benefit to the enjoyment of other rights. The chapter argues that it is extremely problematic to provide an account of the right to a good environment which demonstrates its essentiality for human dignity, autonomy or well-being without describing its value in terms of facilitating other rights. Consequently, it is difficult to find a home for the right within conventional human rights theories.

Constitutional Environmental Rights

Over the last several decades there has been a noticeable increase in constitutional reform in the area of environmental human rights. Over 150 countries now include some form of environmental right or duty in their constitutions. These provisions can be understood to form a spectrum from aspirational yet legally weak provisions on one end, ranging through to explicit individual and collective rights, supported by clearly articulated duties and strong judicial oversight, at the other. Some constitutions even grant rights to nature itself, representing a significant move beyond anthropocentric rights and towards a more ecocentric understanding of our relationship with the natural world. This chapter presents an analysis of this body of law, noting the common themes and seeking to identify some of the factors which may have contributed to the pace of this movement for constitutional change. In doing so, it aims to address the ultimate question of whether constitutional environmental rights might provide evidence of a customary environmental right which would be enshrined in international law and binding on all States. This question will be picked up again in Chap. 4, where the status of the right to a good environment will be explored in more detail.

The Human Right to a Good Environment in International Law

One of the most compelling yet controversial areas of environmental human rights is the notion of a substantive right to an environment of a particular quality. Much has been written on the subject over the past 25 years, yet the debate as to its status, content, structure and effectiveness remains unsettled. This chapter explores in detail the idea of a standalone right to a good environment, one which is independent of other human needs or interests. Such a right, if it exits, could extend protection to natural places, ecosystems and biodiversity, without the need to demonstrate interference with any other human right. To date, such a right is not guaranteed within international human rights law, although some regional human rights treaties and soft-law instruments contain similar provisions, and variations can be found in several national constitutions, as identified in the previous chapter. As the discussion in this chapter demonstrates, there are a number of issues which will need to be resolved before the right is likely to achieve widespread recognition within international law. These include questions about whether a standalone right to a good environment would be supported by fundamental human rights theory, and whether it is possible to define the right in a way which makes it practically useful. In identifying these issues and clarifying the current status of the right, this chapter lays a foundation for further analysis in later chapters, including a consideration of how the right would apply in the context of climate change.

Introduction to Environmental Human Rights and Climate Change

In recent decades we have observed an increased engagement with human rights law as a tool for activating environmental claims and pursuing environmental justice. We have reached an understanding that the relationship between environmental protection and human rights is mutually supportive, yet at the same time characterised by tensions and complexities which make it difficult to articulate clearly and comprehensively in law. This chapter introduces the concept of environmental human rights, and outlines the areas which will be examined further in the remainder of the book. In particular, it identifies the two key topics which are the subject of specific analysis, being the notion of a standalone human right to a good environment and the applicability of environmental human rights to climate change. This analysis leads to the conclusion that, while the environmental dimensions of existing rights have much to offer in addressing climate change and other environmental challenges, the concept of a standalone environmental right remains problematic, particularly if we seek to include it in the body of international human rights law. It is not possible to define a right to a good environment in a way which is at the same time theoretically cogent, practically useful, legally enforceable and politically acceptable for States. Rather than pursue recognition of a new right within international law, work should instead focus on clarifying and developing the environmental dimensions of existing human rights to strengthen the interdependent relationship between the environment and human rights.