Conceptual Challenges to the Recognition and Enforcement of the Right to Clean, Safe and Healthy Environment

Abstract

The right to clean or healthy environment, or what may be called environmental right, is one of the most controversial emerging rights since the agitation for the recognition of the link between human rights and the environment started gaining momentum at international law forums. This is happening partly because, at the global level, no treaty attempts to delimit the scope of this right explicitly; an endeavour which would have served as a form of guide to national jurisdictions. Given that the UN General Assembly recently officially resolved that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a universal human right, and considering the implication this may have on national jurisdictions, it has become more imperative to redefine this right for the ease of enforcement. This paper seeks to examine the conceptual and the theoretical conundrum as well as the criticisms of the right to clean, safe and healthy environment that have largely played a prominent role against the enforcement of the rights in general. The paper also examines constitutional challenges associated with the recognition of the rights in Nigeria and the judicial effort in the case of Gbemre v SPDC in attempting to expound the constitutional right to life to include the right to the environment. The paper finds that the right to the environment has been described and qualified diversely from one jurisdiction to another rendering the same susceptible to the challenges of interpretation. The paper, however, suggests that given the importance of the right, same should be interpreted, no matter how it is qualified, to mean a right to an environment fit for human living, the courts being sufficiently able to draw the line between what environment is fit and what is not for human habitation.