Introduction 

We’re working to bring environmental and human rights together.  

In response to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ (CESCR) call for evidence on everyday rights and the environmental dimension of sustainable development, we brought together civil society organisations working on these issues to develop a joint submission. 

The submission highlighted the interdependence and links between human rights and the environment. 

Call for evidence 

In 2024 the United Nations CESCR released a draft general comment on our everyday rights and the environmental dimension of sustainable development, with a call for evidence.  

General comments provide important clarity and legal authority about how the rights within international treaties are interpreted and used across the world. So, getting involved in shaping one is an important opportunity.  

Recognition of environmental rights as human rights  

The draft general comment is also part of another important development – the growing recognition and implementation of the right to a healthy environment as part of international human rights law.  

In July 2022, the UN General Assembly declared access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a universal human right. 

This important move reflects the lived truth of many rights holders – that environmental rights and other human rights are deeply interlinked and interdependent.  

A healthy biosphere underpins all our fundamental rights, as a precondition of the right to life itself. Yet equally, adopting a human rights lens can illuminate how environmental hazards are unevenly distributed and environmental burdens are experienced by different social groups.  

The law must reflect this reality. 

Our joint submission 

The UK ESCR Network includes many people and organisations with skills, knowledge and expertise in relation to environmental rights.  We were keen to draw on these in response to the call for evidence, to develop a submission that was as useful and considered as possible.  

We worked with Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Opportunity Green, Dr Koldo Casla and the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland to put together a submission that covered three distinct but interlinked issues: 

1. Formal recognition and implementation of the right to a healthy environment. 

We welcomed and supported the draft general comment. We suggested that it set out explicitly how states could improve implementation of right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment to offer a clear route for national governments to ensure they can make it real in their own countries. 

2. Decarbonization of housing. 

We recommended that the Committee include the need to improve the energy efficiency standards in building – particularly as the buildings sector accounts for 37 per cent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.  

However, we also raised concerns about climate gentrification’ – as decarbonization measures may increase the value of housing, potentially making it less affordable – suggesting the Committee include a line that climate change mitigation and adaptation measures taken in the housing sector comply with the principle of non-discrimination and equality. 

3. ESCR and ownership – the social and ecological function of property. 

While states and public authorities are ultimately responsible for respecting, protecting and fulfilling rights, both public and private actors are responsible for global warming – so what can we do about this?  

Our submission suggested the Committee clarify that private property, with regards to the production and delivery of energy services, must serve the general interests of the community.  

Therefore, we urged the Committee to recommend that states set limits with regards consumption, transformation and destruction.  

Working together for change 

Drafting the submission was a great example of the joint work taking place across the UK ESCR Network, and new work to consciously bring together human rights and environmental groups – as our goals are often interdependent and interlinked. 

We’re grateful to the partners who made this submission so strong and look forward to continuing this work in 2025.