CYIL vol. 15 (2024)

PETRA BAUMRUK international environmental law, to examine whether it provides human rights norms, or one can study international human rights law and look for environmental rights within it. 2. Opposing views Today, many consider environmental protection and the promotion of human rights as intertwined: complementary goals. 11 Nevertheless, there are some critics, scholars and lawyers that reject the connection between human rights and the environment. 12 One who is in favor of the previous inspection is, for example, the former Vice President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Ch. Weeramantry, who not only recognizes this linkage between the two rights, but also places environmental protection within the human rights doctrine . In his separate opinion in Case Concerning the Gabcíkovo - Nagymaros Project, Weeramantry noted: The protection of the environment is likewise a vital part of contemporary human rights doctrine, for it is a sine qua non for numerous human rights such as the right to health and the right to life itself. It is scarcely necessary to elaborate on this, as damage to the environment can impair and undermine all the human right s spoken of in the Universal Declaration and other human rights instruments. 13 [Emphasis added] From this statement one can claim that there is no doubt that environmental damage can jeopardize the enjoyment of human rights but whether it is rightful to assert that environmental protection forms part of the human rights doctrine is yet not clear. 14 Moreover, to speak only about the protection of human beings in this respect and not take into account other species and actors of the ecosystem endorse the rather narrow and selfish “anthropocentric approach” . 15 Indeed, some commentators take the view that to speak of a human right to a healthy environment detracts from the “ecocentric approach” to environmental protection. 16 Those who deny the linkage between human rights and the environment, or even reject it completely, claim that it is due to the rights’ incompatibility and contradictoriness . T hey claim human rights and environmental protection are based on fundamentally different and ultimately irreconcilable value systems and hence the rights are more likely to conflict with each other than to be mutually reinforcing or working together as a whole. 17 For example, proponents of the human rights approach are of the opinion that linking these two matters diminishes the 11 ANTON, Donald K. and SHELTON, Dinah L.: op. cit ., p. 119. 12 Ibid. 13 Case Concerning the Gabčíkovo - Nagymaros Project ( Hungary v. Slovakia ), judgment of 25 September 1997, ICJ (1997). Separate opinion of Vice-President Weeramantry, pp. 91–92. 14 Such individual opinion does not have the same importance as majority judgments, but it can be illustrative of the recognition at the highest judicial level of the concept of protection the environment with human rights. 15 “Anthropocentric approach” stipulates that human being are the central or most significant species (human centered) versus “ecocentric approach” where all species of the ecosystem, also human beings, are taken into account (nature-centered). See BOYLE, Alan E.: The Role of International Human Rights Law in the Protection of the Environment. In BOYLE, Alan E. and ANDERSON, Michael R. (eds.): Human Rights Approaches to Environmental Protection . 2 nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 51–53. 16 BOYLE, Alan E.: The Role of International Human Rights Law, pp. 51–53. 17 ANTON, Donald K. and SHELTON, Dinah. L.: op. cit ., p. 119.

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