PROJECT | Climate Justice, Human Rights Laws

In August 2024, we had a significant win when the ACT Government enshrined the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment in the Territory’s Human Rights Act. 

Our human rights depend on a safe and healthy planet. As the source of our food, water, and air, a healthy environment holds the key to our survival and wellbeing. 

That’s why the Human Rights Law Centre has been advocating to enshrine the right to a healthy environment in our laws across the country. In July 2022, the Australian Government supported a landmark resolution in the UN General Assembly to formally recognise a standalone right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment at international law.

Together with civil society partners, we conducted advocacy calling for the right to a safe, healthy and sustainable environment is in the Australian Capital Territory’s Human Rights Act. In August 2024, the ACT became first jurisdiction in Australia to establish this right.

This important change will help communities in the ACT impacted by climate and environmental harms to better hold their government to account. In May 2024, the Federal Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights recommended that the right to a healthy environment be enshrined in federal law as part of a national Human Rights Act.

The recognition of a healthy environment as a human right in the ACT provides an important precedent which we can now seek to build on in other jurisdictions across Australia.