Should Australia recognise the human right to a healthy environment?

Australia is one of very few countries that does not recognise the right to a healthy environment.
Jordan Davis, Author provided

Meg Good, University of Tasmania

Australia is one of only 15 nations (a list that also includes Canada and the United States) that does not recognise the human right to a healthy environment at the federal level.

Last year, the Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law recommended that environmental democracy in Australia “must have as a foundation, respect for fundamental human rights and, in particular, an enforceable right to a clean and healthy environment”.

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Suggestions have also been made by various academics and environmental protection organisations to recognise the right in existing and proposed state human rights charters, including the soon-to-be-developed Queensland Human Rights Act.

So should Australia heed these calls and recognise the right? The global experience with environmental rights recognition suggests that it could be beneficial.

Environmental protection

In 2012, Canadian environmental lawyer David Boyd published The Environmental Rights Revolution, an analysis of the dozens of nations which have already recognised the human right to a healthy environment in their constitutions.

Although there is no internationally accepted definition of the right, Boyd cites the Stockholm Declaration as its first formal recognition:

Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being, and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations.

His research found that across Latin America, Europe and Asia, the right to a healthy environment has helped to strengthen existing environmental protection laws and policies and encouraged the introduction of new stronger legislation. Significantly, it has also prevented governments from “rolling back” effective laws created by their predecessors.

Lawsuits utilising the right have been successful in achieving better protection for the environment, safeguarding crucial natural resources for current and future generations.

Whether Australia would enjoy similar benefits would significantly depend on the expression of the right and the form of legal recognition adopted.

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In Latvia, the right is expressed as a right to live in a “benevolent environment”, whereas in Brazil citizens are granted a right to an “ecologically balanced environment”. Exactly how the right would be expressed in Australia would be a question for parliament.

It’s highly unlikely the Australian Constitution would be changed to incorporate the right (since 1906, constitutional reform has succeeded only eight times), so it’s probable that Australia would recognise the right through legislation.

Although Australia has so far resisted introducing comprehensive national human rights legislation, the right could be recognised within a statutory bill of human rights based on the “dialogue model”.

The dialogue model of recognition

Recommended by the National Human Rights Consultation Committee, the dialogue model involves all three arms of government engaging in a “dialogue” about human rights protection. It requires public authorities to act in line with protected rights, and courts to (if possible) interpret legislation in a compatible manner.

However, one of the most powerful consequences of recognising the right within this model is that all future legislation would be scrutinised for consistency with the right.

Australia already has a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, which examines the compatibility of proposed legislation with specified international human rights standards. Presumably, if the right was recognised in a federal bill of rights, the Committee’s mandate would alter to include consideration of all rights recognised under the legislation.

At present, the Committee is not required to consider the compatibility of proposed legislation with the human right to a healthy environment.

This was highlighted in 2016, when the federal government controversially proposed amending the nation’s key environmental protection legislation to limit standing for environmental protection groups to challenge decisions made under the Act.

Due to the Minister stating that there is “no standalone right to a healthy environment”, the Committee only considered the legislation’s impact on environmental protection indirectly through consideration of its impact on the right to health (which includes the “underlying determinants of health”, such as a healthy environment).

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Ideally, the Committee would be empowered to consider the impacts of proposed legislation on the right to a healthy environment directly. This scrutiny process would help to ensure that proposals which jeopardise the government’s ability to protect, respect and fulfil the right could be identified and challenged before they pass into law.

A limited but useful tool

Under the dialogue model, the parliament retains the final say, meaning it would still be possible for the legislature to pass legislation manifestly incompatible with the right. The “safety net” of protection offered by this form of recognition would not suffice to address all potential and actual breaches of the right, or even guarantee its fulfilment.

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However, it would ensure that the right enters the legal and policy discourse around natural resources management and sustainable development.

In a time of unprecedented climate change, the right invites another way of thinking about our relationship with the natural world, and offers a useful tool for improving environmental protection in Australia.

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This article is based on the author’s 2016 PhD thesis which proposed legal recognition of the human right to a healthy environment in Australia under a statutory bill of rights.

Meg Good, Adjunct Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Article: How to Buy the Right Bushwalking Boot

Bushwalkers/hikers/trekkers (call it what you will) know that the right boot for an individual walker is absolutely essential out in the wild (or as we might call it Australia, out in the bush or out in the sticks). Many a bushwalk has been ruined or seriously curtailed by having the wrong boot. For me, when I’m doing some serious walking and covering large swathes of territory, blisters become a major problem.

The link below is to an article that provides some tips on what to look for when buying a bushwalking boot.

For more visit:
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/outdoor/guide-to-buying-the-perfect-hiking-boot.htm.

Check In: Day 2 of Holiday

I have had a most interesting couple of days on the road and in the bush. Currently I’m in a motel room at Woolgoolga, near Coffs Harbour on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, Australia. ‘Hardly the wild,’ I hear you say, and you’re quite right – it isn’t. The weather was beginning to change I noticed on the final leg of my day’s itinerary, so I decided to hide out in a motel room for the night – good decision, it’s pouring outside.

I won’t give all away – I’ll leave the main description of the holiday to the website – but just some of the ‘downlights’ of the first couple of days for this post.

I didn’t arrive at Cathedral Rock National Park until just on dark, but did get the tent up prior to darkness arriving – when it did, it was dark! The campfire took an eternity to get going as all of the timber was damp and by the time I got it started it was time for bed – all-be-it an early night (7.30pm). I had decided to not spend the money on replacing all of the gear I needed to replace for camping, following the loss of a lot of gear over the years due to storage, etc. I hadn’t done much in the way of bushwalking or camping for years due to injuries sustained in my car crash and a bad ankle injury, so I left it all a bit late. I figured that for this holiday I’d make do and replace the gear with quality gear before the next trip. In short, I’ll get by – but it would have been nice to have some good gear just the same. It was a very cold night let me tell you – and long.

When I reached the heights of my first walk today, standing on top of Cathedral Rock National Park, my digital camera decided to die on me. I knew there was something wrong with it during the ascent as it was really chugging away taking pictures. I did get a couple of reasonable panoramic shots on the top of Cathedral Rock before it died, so that was good. I took stills with the video camera I was using, so it wasn’t a complete loss. When I completed the Woolpack Rocks walk I made the trip to Coffs Harbour to seek a replacement and got one for a reasonable price. It’s just another compact and so I will also buy a digital SLR prior to my next trip I hope. My previous SLR was basically destroyed when the camera cap came off during a multiple day bushwalk and all manner of stuff got into it. It wasn’t digital so I didn’t bother repairing it.

So tomorrow – off to Dorrigo National Park I hope and several lengthy walks I haven’t done before. Hopefully the rain will clear.

 

Earth Day: April 22

Earth Day is about the earth and the people who live on it. The Earth Day Network believes that all people, no matter who they are, have a right to a healthy and sustainable environment. Those who support Earth Day are a veritable who’s who of environmentalism. The network not only educates and increases awareness of environmental issues, it also actively seeks to bring about change in order to achieve a healthy and sustainable environment.

Earth Day is celebrated on the 22nd April each year, with supporters getting involved in all manner of environmentally responsible activities.

Find out more about Earth Day and the Earth Day Network at:

http://www.earthday.org/

Holiday Planning: All out the Window

As my holiday draws closer my plans have changed yet again. Back in November 2009 I rolled my right ankle badly and it has not yet recovered to the extent that it would allow me to do a lot of bushwalking – especially on slopes. So this has meant a complete rethink of my upcoming 2 week holiday.

The theory of travelling to Wagga Wagga before heading to the New South Wales south coast has now been scrapped. I simply won’t be able to do the walking I had hoped to do.

Now I am looking at a road trip – and I’m not too sure just where the roads will actually take me. I will be on the road for 7 days and had thought that a quick trip to Kakadu was a possibility – but it would have to be a very quick trip (and probably without stopping). So that isn’t going to happen.

So what will happen? Not completely sure on that. I do plan to do the following however:

Day One – Dubbo

Day Two – Wagga Wagga

OK, so the above two days are still very similar to the original plan. It is after these two days that things have changed. Instead of turning to the east, I’ll be turning to the west. I just haven’t yet decided as to where.