Recognizing the Intersections between Human Rights and the Environment in Legal Education and Training

Abstract

Ever since the 1972 Stockholm Declaration proclaimed that man’s natural and man-made environment are essential to his well-being and to the enjoyment of his basic human rights—especially the right to life itself—there has been a consensus amongst scholars that there is a link between the environment and human rights; that a clean environment is a sine qua non for the enjoyment of other human rights; and that without a clean environment, humankind may not live to enjoy the other recognized forms of rights such as the right to life and the right to education. Despite this consensus, however, the human rights and environmental epistemic communities continue to operate largely as strange bedfellows. This is largely due to the perception, and most times the reality, that environmental administrators may lack the required training and skills to interpret, apply and mainstream human rights instruments and vice versa. This article discusses the reasons for this dichotomy. Principally, this persisting gap between both epistemic communities can be traced to a lack of a holistic education and training that introduces administrators on both sides of the divide to key instruments, resources, materials and training needed to holistically apply both instruments. This article discusses the need to reflect the synergies between both divergent and convergent areas of law in teaching and research. As the world becomes ever more aware of how lack of environmental protection could threaten the enjoyment of human rights, there is a need to provide adequate education and training to law students in order to adequately prepare them to mainstream and apply environmental rights in their future careers. This article proposes and describes a specialized ‘human rights and environment seminar’ as an example of a course that could be introduced into the legal curriculum to further identify the cross-cutting linkages between environmental law, international law and human rights law. A draft curriculum on the content and nature of this seminar is proposed and discussed.