PROJECT | Climate Justice

Our human rights ultimately depend on a healthy environment. As the source of our food, water, and air, it holds the key to our survival and wellbeing. That’s why we need to include a right to a healthy environment in our human rights laws.

Australian environmental law currently offers inadequate and piecemeal protection in the face of the existential threat posed by the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Our laws also offer little protection for the myriad ways the destruction of our environment impacts the rights of current and future generations, nor access to justice for people to hold accountable those responsible. 

That’s why the Human Rights Law Centre has been working with civil society partners advocates since 2023 for the right to a healthy environment to be included in state and territory human rights acts and charters, as well as for the introduction of a national Human Rights Act. 

Internationally, there is growing legal recognition of the right to a safe, healthy, and sustainable environment as a fundamental human right. Over 160 countries have already implemented laws to protect the rights of their citizens to a healthy environment, providing essential guarantees regarding access to clean air, water, and soil. Enshrining the right to a healthy environment in Australia – particularly as part of broader, enforceable human rights legislation – would be a significant enabler of a faster, fairer, and more inclusive transition to net zero emissions.  

It would put the environment and peoples’ health and well-being now and into the future at the heart of government decision-making and give communities a more direct means of challenging harmful government decisions 

In 2024, we successfully advocated for the establishment of a right to a healthy environment in the ACT’s Human Rights Act. The ACT became the first jurisdiction in Australia to enshrine this right, setting an important precedent we can now build on in other Australian jurisdictions.  

The Human Rights Law Centre also continues to lead the public campaign and engage with politicians for the introduction of a national Human Rights Act, with the inclusion of a right to healthy environment. A national Human Rights Act could make a real impact on the climate crisis as it would help ensure the federal government considers human rights when making policy decisions, as well as boosting the power of people and communities seeking remedies when their rights are breached.