Legitimate and necessary: adjudicating human rights violations related to activities causing environmental harm or risk

Abstract

The UN International Law Commission and various scholars have devoted attention in recent years to the issue of the so-called fragmentation of international law. Far less con-sideration has been given to the proliferation, if not fragmentation, of international juris-dictions. Cross-regime issues, such as disputes concerning both labour conditions and trade, or investment and environmental regulation, pose problems because the mandates of specialized tribunals generally call for preferential, if not exclusive, application of the specific area of law for which the bodies were created. Despite this, the legitimacy of tri-bunals deciding matters within their jurisdiction is generally accepted, even if disputes sometimes arise over the appropriate choice of law or about how to reconcile competing interests such as between trade law and environmental protection. It is therefore some-what puzzling to encounter questions about whether it is legitimate for human rights courts to decide human rights cases involving violations related to underlying environ-mental conditions or activities posing risk of environmental harm. This article examines some explanations for this situation, and concludes that it is both legitimate and necessary for human rights tribunals to hear human rights complaints notwithstanding the fact that complaints originate in environmental conditions or activities posing a risk of environ-mental harm with negative impacts on human well-being.