A/HRC/43/30 ecosystem with clean air, soil and water, which in turn requires stable climatic conditions. The framework principles on human rights and the environment further set out the basic human rights obligations regarding the environment.67 49. Significant work on children’s rights and the environment has been done by human rights mechanisms in recent years, establishing an understanding of the international legal obligations to protect children’s rights through a healthy environment and of the interlinkages between a healthy environment and the effective enjoyment of all human rights.68 50. The Committee on the Rights of the Child, which has focused on children’s rights and the environment when reviewing State compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, has issued several statements and dedicated its 2016 day of general discussion to that theme.69 In September 2019, five United Nations human rights treaty bodies issued a joint statement calling upon States to act on climate, as failure to do so may constitute a breach of their obligations under international human rights law. They emphasized children’s heightened risk of experiencing health-related harm due to climate change because of their developing bodies.70 51. Children’s rights are enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. When children cannot enjoy their right to a healthy and safe environment, their other rights are seriously affected, including their rights to life, survival and development, to health, to water and sanitation, to an adequate standard of living, including food and housing, to culture, to play, to education, to bodily integrity, to freedom from economic exploitation, to information and to participation.71 A healthy environment is a key determinant of human health and is necessary for children’s enjoyment of all their rights.72 Right to life, the best interests of the child and non-discrimination 52. According to the Human Rights Committee, States have explicit obligations to prevent the threats that environmental degradation and climate change pose to the effective enjoyment of the right to life.73 States have heightened obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other treaties to protect children from environmental harm, ensure that their best interests are taken as a primary consideration (a guiding principle in all actions concerning children) and implement special measures to protect, assist and care for children.74 53. States must protect children from harm and ensure development, including by considering possible future risk precautionary measures against such harm. 76 States must environmental standards consistent with the best available 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 10 their well-being and and harm 75 and take adopt and implement science and relevant A/HRC/37/59, annex. A/HRC/33/41; A/HRC/35/13; A/HRC/37/58; A/HRC/41/26; A/74/480. www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRC/Pages/Discussion2016.aspx; www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25068&LangID=E; www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24393&LangID=E. www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24998&LangID=E. Convention on the Rights of the Child, arts. 28–29; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, arts. 13–14; Sustainable Development Goal No. 4. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 14 (2000) on the right to the highest attainable standard of health, para. 4; Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comments No. 7 (2005) on implementing child rights in early childhood, para. 10, and No. 15, para. 2. Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 36 (2018) on the right to life. Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 3; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, art. 10 (3). Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comment No. 14 (2013) on the right of the child to have his or her best interests taken as a primary consideration, paras. 24 and 71. Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, principle 15.