A/HRC/19/34 have incorporated environmental rights and responsibilities into their national constitutions. 76. The Human Rights Council has also observed that environmental damage can have negative implications, both direct and indirect, for the effective enjoyment of human rights. In this connection, the human rights treaty bodies have addressed the environmental dimensions of the rights protected under their respective treaties, for example, in general comments, decisions concerning individual petitions and concluding observations. Similarly, regional human rights monitoring bodies and courts have clarified the environmental dimensions of protected rights, including the rights to life, health, property, private and family life and access to information. 77. Furthermore, the Human Rights Council has noted that human rights obligations and commitments have the potential to inform and strengthen international, regional and national policymaking in the area of environmental protection, promoting policy coherence, legitimacy and sustainable outcomes. In this regard, over the last three decades, human rights mechanisms have contributed to clarifying the linkages between human rights and the environment. The United Nations human rights charter-based bodies in particular have contributed to elucidating certain elements of the linkage between human rights and the environment through the adoption of resolutions that provide guidance to States and international organizations. In addition, several special procedures established by the former Commission on Human Rights, the former Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and the Human Rights Council, for example, concerning environment, toxics, food, water, housing, extreme poverty and indigenous peoples, have contributed to clarifying and strengthening the human rights and environment linkage. 78. While much progress has been made in elucidating the complex and multifaceted relationship between human rights and environment, the dialogue between the two fields of law and policy has still left a number of questions open. The theoretical discussions on the relationship between human rights and environment raise salient questions concerning, inter alia, the need for and the potential content of a right to a healthy environment; the role and duties of private actors with respect to human rights and the environment; and the extraterritorial reach of human rights and environment. Similarly, such questions arise regarding the operationalization of international human rights obligations as how to implement a rights-based approach to the negotiation and implementation of multilateral environmental agreements; and how to monitor the implementation of human rights treaties that recognize the right to a healthy environment or interconnected rights. These questions and other pending challenges lead to the following recommendations. 79. The Human Rights Council may consider paying special attention to the relationship between human rights and the environment through the appropriate mechanisms. These may include, inter alia, the establishment of a special procedure on human rights and the environment, the organization of a high-level panel or a call for further or more specific studies on the issues at hand. More focused attention on human rights and the environment would provide the Human Rights Council with detailed analysis of the key issues and gaps that arise in the relationship between human rights and environment. This analysis and information generally is key to enable the Human Rights Council to provide guidance to the international community in regard to the pressing human rights challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century, including the recognition of a general right to a healthy environment. 80. The mechanism chosen by the Human Rights Council could also serve to further strengthen and clarify the relationship between human rights and the 16