A/HRC/45/CRP.10 to appropriate and effective remedies when breached.5 An effective system of justice and remedy helps to prevent future abuses and ensure responsible business conduct.6 6. Effective remedies for violations of human rights law include the right of victims to have access to relevant information concerning violations and to effective and prompt reparation for harm suffered.7 Reparations can involve restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, guarantees of non-repetition, including changes in relevant laws and practices, as well as bringing to justice the perpetrators of human rights violations.8 Extrapolating from these principles, the right to an effective remedy requires, inter alia, the remediation of contaminated sites, compensation, the cessation of action or inaction that gives rise to impacts, the provision of health care and the dissemination of information to prevent recurrence and further, direct or indirect, harms.9 7. Victims have a right to fair compensation for losses suffered. Compensation can address material losses and non-material or moral suffering. Timely reparation to prevent recurrence is essential.10 Moreover, the application must be without discrimination of any kind or on any ground.11 To be effective, remedies should be appropriately adapted for vulnerable groups, such as children, taking into account their special needs, risks and evolving development and capacities.12 8. Unfortunately, most victims of toxic exposures have neither access to justice nor an effective remedy. Most perpetrators of human rights violations relating to toxics are not held accountable. Major obstacles to accountability and remedy include the unreasonably high burden of proof, the long latency periods for consequences to manifest in some cases and the difficulty in establishing causation; substantial information gaps with respect to the identification of hazards, measurement of exposure and specification of the epidemiological impacts; possible exposure to a multitude of different substances and over a lifetime. The pervasive inaccessibility of effective remedies to victims of toxic exposures serves as a barrier to the transition to a safer, healthier environment for millions of people around the world.13 9. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that over 12 million people die each year from an unhealthy environment, widely acknowledged an underestimation, given the information gaps on hazards and exposure.14 A minuscule number of those victims receive any semblance of effective remedy. The inability to secure justice, even by the victims of the most egregious and clear cases of malicious conduct adds insult to injury. The need to establish a causal linkage between exposure to toxics and health impacts fosters impunity, making it nearly impossible for many victims to obtain justice and remedy for chronic exposure to a cocktail of toxic substances, whether they are exposed while still in the womb or later in their lifetimes. Most people do not even know that they are victims. 10. Profound questions exist about how we uphold the principle of accountability and rights to justice and an effective remedy for people around the world for chronic exposure to a multitude of substances. The situation facing those struggling to secure their rights from 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 ICCPR, art. 2., Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Principles 22, 25 and 26, and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, principle 10. A/HRC/36/41. Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, para. 11. Ibid. paras. 15-23. See also Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 31 (2004) on the nature of the general legal obligation imposed on States parties to the Covenant, para. 16 and Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 39. See A/HRC/33/41, para. 40. Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 16, para. 31. Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, para. 25. A/HRC/36/41; Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 31, para. 15; see also Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 16, para. 31. A/HRC/42/41. See WHO, https://www.who.int/gho/phe/en/. 3