Contribution to UN Report on the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment
A new United Nations report has been published recently regarding the human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The report titled “The right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment: non-toxic environment” (A/HRC/49/53) was led by the Special Rapporteur Prof. David Boyd and is the outcome of a cooperation of different NGOs, environmental movements, academics, and students from all over the world through a so-called ‘researchathon’. In this collective effort, our team member Víctor Cobs-Muñoz contributed evidence about the German cases of Sacrifice Zones, namely, various places from the Rhenish lignite mining area characterised by and suffering from coal and lignite extraction and processing.
The report, and its annexes, are particularly relevant in the light of the ongoing climate crisis and for the communities around environmental justice. The collective effort marks the first step towards the formalisation and institutional acknowledgment of Sacrifice Zones as “…extremely contaminated areas where vulnerable and marginalized groups bear a disproportionate burden of the health, human rights and environmental consequences of exposure to pollution and hazardous substances…”.
The Report and related documents can be downloaded here (navigate to A/HRC/49/53): https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-environment/annual-thematic-reports