Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment

The 16 framework principles set out basic obligations of States under human rights law as they relate to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

The framework principles and commentary, created by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, do not create new obligations. Rather, they reflect the application of existing human rights obligations in the environmental context. As the name “framework principles” indicates, they are intended to provide a sturdy basis for understanding and implementing human rights obligations relating to the environment, but they do not purport to describe all the human rights obligations that can currently be brought to bear on environmental issues, much less attempt to predict those that may evolve in the future. The goal is simply to describe the main human rights obligations that apply in the environmental context in order to facilitate their practical implementation and further development.

The framework principles are listed below; read the full document for a commentary that elaborates on each principle and clarifies their meanings.

1. States should ensure a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment in order to respect, protect and fulfil human rights.
2. States should respect, protect and fulfil human rights in order to ensure a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
3. States should prohibit discrimination and ensure equal and effective protection against discrimination in relation to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
4. States should provide a safe and enabling environment in which individuals, groups and organs of society that work on human rights or environmental issues can operate free from threats, harassment, intimidation and violence.
5. States should respect and protect the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in relation to environmental matters.
6. States should provide for education and public awareness on environmental matters.
7. States should provide public access to environmental information by collecting and disseminating information and by providing affordable, effective and timely access to information to any person upon request.
8. To avoid undertaking or authorizing actions with environmental impacts that interfere with the full enjoyment of human rights, States should require the prior assessment of the possible environmental impacts of proposed projects and policies, including their potential effects on the enjoyment of human rights.
9. States should provide for and facilitate public participation in decision-making related to the environment, and take the views of the public into account in the decision-making process.
10. States should provide for access to effective remedies for violations of human rights and domestic laws relating to the environment.
11. States should establish and maintain substantive environmental standards that are non-discriminatory, non-retrogressive and otherwise respect, protect and fulfil human rights.
12. States should ensure the effective enforcement of their environmental standards against public and private actors.
13. States should cooperate with each other to establish, maintain and enforce effective international legal frameworks in order to prevent, reduce and remedy transboundary and global environmental harm that interferes with the full enjoyment of human rights.
14. States should take additional measures to protect the rights of those who are most vulnerable to, or at particular risk from, environmental harm, taking into account their needs, risks and capacities.
15. States should ensure that they comply with their obligations to indigenous peoples and members of traditional communities, including by: (a) Recognizing and protecting their rights to the lands, territories and resources that they have traditionally owned, occupied or used; (b) Consulting with them and obtaining their free, prior and informed consent before relocating them or taking or approving any other measures that may affect their lands, territories or resources; (c) Respecting and protecting their traditional knowledge and practices in relation to the conservation and sustainable use of their lands, territories and resources; (d) Ensuring that they fairly and equitably share the benefits from activities relating to their lands, territories or resources.
16. States should respect, protect and fulfil human rights in the actions they take to address environmental challenges and pursue sustainable development.