Research On The Dilemma And Solution Of Environmental Protection Based On Human Rights

A good environment and the other rights protected as human rights are supposed to be the essential living condition for human.Human needs a suitable environment for their health and well-being.However,these conditions to ensure human well-being is threatened by a series of specific environmental problems.Although there is a natural connection between human rights and the environment,and this connection provides excellent potential for solving severe environmental problems,international law has long regarded international human rights law and international environmental law as two separate fields.Most international human rights instruments do not explicitly mention the environment,and they often use a variety of terms to describe the primary content of this right.Even if some instruments consider environmental issues in the drafting process,they are not widely used to protect the environment.The main reason is that the discussion on human rights issues predated the consensus to include environmental protection in their national responsibilities.Dealing with environmental protection based on human rights will encounter many difficulties.The first problem is the absence of independent and substantive environmental rights in the international community.The importance of environmental rights can be seen in the various international soft laws of relevant United Nations agencies and the reports of special rapporteurs on human rights and environmental issues,but there has been no substantial development.The regional human rights courts also have much experience interpreting environmental rights and have developed some rich cases on this issue.However,they have not recognised the existence of substantive environmental rights.The second dilemma is that the human rights approach to solving environmental problems will face considerable judicial practice challenges,especially in ecological litigation and climate change mitigation.This challenge is prominent.Although there are several successful cases,plenty of obstacles still exist.Finally,in the current international situation of ups and downs and rapid changes,national ideas on environmental issues have led to the third dilemma.The inconsistency of the country's environmental policy concepts has even affected the pace of global environmental negotiations and environmental governance,which has created practical obstacles to responding to environmental issues based on human rights.It seems that the above three problems are independent of each other,but actually,they affect mutually.The absence of substantive environmental rights makes the environmental issues under the human rights perspective not stipulated,which leads to conflicts of national concepts.This absence,combined with the national concept's conflict,caused a double blow,which straight led to the judicial dilemma of solving environmental problems based on human rights.The negative result of this practical dilemma inevitably aggravated the international community's resistance and slack to solve environmental issues based on human rights,which caused obstacles to the realisation of substantive environmental rights,forming a vicious circle.There are various reasons for producing the above three dilemmas.Fundamentally speaking,human rights and environments are two different fields and two separate disciplines.They are not inherently integrated.From a theoretical perspective,on the one hand,human rights and environmental protection have historically had conflicts and obstacles.The rise of modern environmentalism has triggered loads of discussions and debates about the ethical relationship between humans and their natural environment.It has led to the conflict between anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism,which determines how people view humans and the natural world and how to deal with human rights and environmental protection problems.On the other hand,the interpretation of environmental rights at the international and national levels has different forms and methods.For example,the environmental right has been interpreted by the existing rights(Civil and political rights,as well as economic,social and cultural rights)or regarded as an independent right or just as a power procedure.Finally,it is currently challenging to integrate human rights with the environment and apply human rights to solve environmental problems.The most important reason is that it is arduous to entitle environmental protection;that is,it is onerous to incorporate environmental human rights into the human rights system based on the current human rights theoretical basis.In this work,we focus on the limited(mainly Western)theoretical methods,namely natural rights,volition theory,and interest theory.By making breakthroughs in these three types of approaches,we will gradually understand the compatibility of environmental rights and rights theories.The existing problems of human rights-based environmental protection are caused by inconsistencies in theory and driven by practical situations.On the one hand,a growing number of environmental victims began to seek support under the human rights approach.However,the general principle that utilises human rights law is that it only applies to the territory.Since some environmental threats come from outside the region of a country,in this case,according to international human rights law,whether each country is obliged to protect the human rights of neighbours' citizens due to actions within the country's territory is a huge obstacle.On the other hand,all aspects of human rights-based environmental litigation will face challenges.The court doubted the suitability of environmental cases based on human rights.There are also many difficulties in determining evidence in environmental litigation related to human rights.All the actions related to the state's environmental policies in the face of international anarchy are based on rational choices.The reason why the country has many conceptual conflicts when facing environmental governance is the result of the country's careful weighing.The theories of realism,liberalism,and constructivism have enlightened significance for analysing the deep motivations of the state's behaviour and attitude in global environmental governance policies.After evaluating the current dilemma of human rights-based environmental protection,this article aims to provide some countermeasures and suggestions.For solving the problems mentioned above,there are roughly three possible paths : First of all,the simplest and most direct way is to establish independent substantive environmental human rights and make detailed regulations.This way does not use the existing rights such as life,survival,health and other human rights to clarify and interpret environmental rights,and it is more accessible to straight use environmental rights to solve environmental problems in judicial practice.Secondly,if countries are unwilling to establish a new,legally enforceable environmental right,they can also find another way to build a legally binding global environmental instrument.There are already such precedents internationally.For example,the Universal Environmental Convention has set an excellent example for establishing this instrument.Finally,if the above two paths are hard to be recognised by all countries in a short period,then another way can be set to establish a regional environmental human rights protection agreement.Since the number of countries in the region is small,and it is easier to form a common environmental concept based on geographical factors,it will be simpler to recognise relevant countries.For example,the "Escazu Agreement"(Coming to effect)adopted by Latin American and Caribbean countries provides a good model for establishing such agreements in the future.The "Community of Shared Future for Mankind",as the value concept of a new type of international order,is the concentrated expression and extended development of China's view of international order.In the rapid development of globalisation,countries in the world have gradually formed a close community.In this context,the concept is an ideal starting point for solving all of humankind's environmental problems.It is an ideological trend that transcends traditional anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism and points out a new path and direction for the governance of contemporary global environmental issues.The rule of law in the international environment has gone through a stage of coexistence and cooperation of sovereign states and is in a transitional stage to the "common interest of mankind".It is the performance of the international community in the new stage.Under the current background,building a legal system that includes environment and climate can consider all countries' interests according to the national conditions and promote the joint development of human and the natural environment.Since the conflict of ideas between different countries on environmental issues is a fundamental cause of the human rights-based environmental protection dilemma,countries in the world must promote cooperation between countries under the concept of a "community with a shared future for mankind".The idea at its core can arouse everyone's sympathy for environmental issues and their destiny,which will genuinely construct an acceptable environmental concept to all countries and an international environmental governance plan that can benefit both human and nature.Therefore,the "Community of Shared Future for Mankind",as a new concept that carries Chinese wisdom and thought,can contribute to global environmental protection.