A/HRC/22/43 Remedy” Framework and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights will be particularly helpful.36 F. The relationship between existing human rights and a right to a healthy environment 51. Some cross-cutting issues that arise in almost all of the above contexts concern the relationship between the two approaches to environmental rights described in the second chapter of this report – that is, the relationship between efforts to recognize a single, overarching right to a healthy environment and efforts to “green” existing human rights by identifying their environmental implications. That the two approaches are not inconsistent with one another seems apparent from their simultaneous use in many national and regional legal systems. But many aspects of their relationship remain unclear. 52. Possible relationships include: that the two approaches are separate from one another; that the definition and content of the right to a healthy environment are informed by experience with greening existing human rights; and that the right to a healthy environment may be derived from one or more existing rights, as it is in the Arab Charter and the Human Rights Declaration of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Here, too, further study may produce greater clarity. G. Other issues 53. The issues briefly described above are not the only ones raised by this mandate. Other issues that deserve closer examination include those concerning: the potential rights of future generations; the application of human rights obligations to especially pressing environmental challenges, including climate change, armed conflict and the environmentally displaced; and, last, but not least, the relevance of human rights to protection of non-human aspects of the environment. One of the longest-standing criticisms of a human rights-based approach to environmental protection is that it is likely to ignore important aspects of the environment that are not readily reducible to human needs and interests. As the mandate proceeds, it will be necessary to bear in mind not only the potential, but also the possible limits, of looking to human rights for environmental standards. IV. Planning the programme of activities 54. The first priority of the mandate is to provide greater conceptual clarity to the application of human rights obligations related to the environment. The Independent Expert intends to take an evidence-based approach to determining the nature, scope and content of the obligations. He plans to spend much of his time in the next year compiling such evidence, with a view to mapping the obligations in as much detail as possible. He will seek to highlight areas of coherence in the development of the obligations. Where coherence may not exist, he will be alert to the possibility of describing gaps and suggesting ways that the law may be developing to fill them. 36 See report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework, A/HRC/17/31. 17

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