Focus on Environment

<strong>Focus</strong> Environ (2016)
Environmental Legislations in Malaysia
comfortable environment for living and
working.
The words ‘clean’ and ‘healthy’
environment is interconnected. It may be
stated that a clean environment is a human
right; and health is a state of complete
physical, mental and social well-being and
not merely the absence of disease or
infirmity. The scope of creating a healthy
environment is clealy not limited to
hospitals and doctor’s surgeries, but includes
the myraid factors that influence to health,
agriculture and food, education, employment
status, and working envirinment, water and
sanitation, and health care services
(Mohammad, 2014).
Stockholm Declaration 1972 has
recognized the relationship between human
and development. Principle 1 of the
Stockholm Declaration declared that, ‘man
has the fundamental right to freedom,
equality and adequate condition of life, in an
environment of 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’. Stockholm Declaration 1972
referred to ‘an environment of a quality that
permits a life of dignity and well-being’.
Then, the United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development 1992,
known as the Earth Summit, produced Rio
Declaration on Human Environment and
Development (the Rio Declaration) that
stressed the principle of sustainable
development, that is, development that
meets the developmental and environmental
needs of present and future generation.
Principle 1 of the Rio Declaration states that,
“Human beings are at the centre of concerns
for sustainable development. They are
entitled to a healthy and productive life in
harmony with nature”.
In 1994, the report of the UN Special
Rapporteur on Human Rights and the
Mohd Anuar
Environment included the proposed right to
secure, healthy and ecologically sound
environment. Since then, many countries
have inserted the right to healthy
environment in their Constitutions (Boyd,
2011). According to Law (2011), in total
there are more than 100 countries that have
recognized the right to live in a healthy
environment either explicitly or through
judicial interpretation of other provisions.
These include Norway, Albania, Spain,
Argentina, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay,
Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Thailand, Venezuela,
Burundi, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa and
many more.
Besides the state constitution, there
are also a number of regional agreements
that explicitly recognized the right to a
healthy environment. Among the
instruments are the African Charter on
Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Additional
Protocol to the American Convention on
Human Rights, the Arab Charter on Human
Rights, and the Aarhus Convention on
Access to Information, Public Participation
in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in
Environmental Matters.
Some international courts and
tribunals like the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR), the European Committee of
Social Rights, the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) and the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights have
interpreted international treaties and
conventions to include the right to a healthy
environment. For example, ICJ in the case
of Hungary v Slovakia opined that, ‘The
protection of the environment is… a vital
part of contemporary human rights doctrine,
for it is a sine qua non for numerous human
rights such as the right to health and the
right to life itself…damage to the
environment can impair and undermine all
the rights spoken of in the Universal
ISBN: 978-967-14475-0-5; eISBN: 978-967-14475-1-2 53