A/HRC/22/43 degradation on human rights. For example, at the request of the Council, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) conducted a study in 2008–2009 on the effects of climate change on the enjoyment of human rights (A/HRC/10/61). The study concluded that climate change will pose direct and indirect threats to many rights, including: the rights to life and food, as a result of malnutrition and extreme weather events; the right to water, as a result of melting glaciers and reductions in snow cover; and the right to the highest attainable standard of health, as a result of malnutrition, extreme weather, and an increasing incidence of malaria and other diseases that thrive in warmer weather. The study noted that rising sea levels caused by global warming threaten the very existence of small island States, which has “implications for the right to self-determination, as well as for the full range of rights for which individuals depend on the State for their protection” (para. 41). In December 2009, before the Copenhagen meeting of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the special procedure mandate holders issued a joint statement drawing attention to the dangers that climate change presents to the enjoyment of human rights. 13 21. Special procedures have further analysed the effects of environmental degradation on human rights. One mandate, in particular, was created to examine the human rights effects of a specific environmental problem: the illicit disposal of hazardous substances and waste in developing countries. Since 1995, the special rapporteurs appointed to carry out this mandate have identified many human rights that may be infringed by such toxic dumping, including not only the rights to life and health, but also “such fundamental rights as the right of peoples to self-determination and permanent sovereignty over natural resources, the right to development, the rights to … adequate food and safe and healthy working conditions, freedom of expression, the right to form and join trade unions, the rights to strike and to bargain collectively, the right to social security and the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications”.14 22. Other special procedures have drawn the connections between environmental harm and impairment of the rights within their mandates. The following are a few of many possible examples. The former Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context informed the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development that “the realization of the right to adequate housing loses its meaning unless processes are put into place to ensure that people and communities can live in an environment that is free from pollution of air, water and the food chain” 15 and the current Special Rapporteur has issued a detailed report on the effects of climate change on the right (A/64/255). The Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation has carefully examined the effects of climate change on those rights.16 The Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health has underscored that the right extends to the underlying determinants of health, such as safe water, adequate sanitation, and healthy environmental conditions generally (A/62/214, para. 104).17 The 13 14 15 16 17 8 Joint statement of the special procedure mandate holders of the Human Rights Council on the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Copenhagen, 7–18 December 2009). Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on toxic waste on adverse effects of the illicit movement and dumping of toxic and dangerous products and wastes on the enjoyment of human rights, E/CN.4/2001/55, para. 58. Statement by Mr. Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, 30 August 2002. Climate Change and the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation: Position Paper. Available from www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Water/Climate_Change_Right_Water_Sanitation.pdf. This is also the position of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (see general comment No. 14 (2000) on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, para. 4).