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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 574 ..

As I said, the Australian government is a party to the Vienna Declaration, so it is part not only of an international body of law but also of our national system. Although the bill defines a subset of this indivisible, interdependent set of rights in interpreting the rights, the related rights are to be taken into account. Environment-related human rights, as I said earlier, have also been derived from the civil and political rights, in particular the right to life. The Vienna Declaration includes a statement on this point in relation to toxic substances and intergenerational equity:

The right to development should be fulfilled so as to meet equitably the developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations. The World Conference on Human Rights recognizes that illicit dumping of toxic and dangerous substances and waste potentially constitutes a serious threat to the human rights to life and health of everyone.

Many of our actions, even in the ACT, negatively affect the balance of the systems that support us—climate, air, clean water and biodiversity. Local actions have local and global effects. This is the point of much of the activity at international level. There are also a number of strong statements and declarations linking environmental rights to human rights. The Australian Centre for Environmental Law canvassed the case law and jurisprudence—that is, learned comment and philosophy of the law based on cases and interpretation of covenants. I would like to quote some more from this submission as it is very relevant to the question of relevant material for the purpose of interpreting the human rights as reflected in this bill:

A human right to a healthy environment has been the subject of much academic discussion and foreign jurisprudence, a significant number of national constitutions, and non-binding international instruments and, most recently and importantly, an international agreement, which was designed to be binding (the Protocol of San Salvador).

The Arhaus Convention in its preamble recognizes that “every person has the right to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and wellbeing.” Australia has not acceded the Arhaus Convention and therefore is not strictly bound by its terms. However, in 1998 it was observed that the current international materials on a human rights to a environment “suggest the direction in which international law may be heading” and are therefore “relevant in determining the existence of a normative, if not a legal, right to environment.

Several other non-binding international documents, such as resolutions and declarations, contain variations of an environmental human right. The Hague Declaration of 1989 was one of the most important international statements connecting environmental degradation to human rights issues. It declared that an environmental harm threatens “the right to live in dignity in a viable global environment”. Another major development was the 1994 Final Report on Human Rights and the Environment (the ‘Ksentini Report’) which set out the legal foundations of a right to a healthy, decent and balanced environment. In addition UNEP’s 1993 Proposal for a Basic Law on Environmental Protection and the Promotion of Sustainable Development includes within its governing principles “[the] right of present and future generations to enjoy healthy environment and decent quality of life …”

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