A significant number of international human rights and environmental instruments show how environmental protection contributes to the enjoyment of human rights. Human rights became a focus of international law long before environmental concerns did. While the United Nations Charter of 1945 marked the beginning of modern international human rights law, the Stockholm Declaration of 1972 is generally seen as the starting point of the modern international framework for environmental protection.
Certain international human rights instruments concluded after the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment explicitly recognized the linkage between human rights and the environment. For example, the Convention on the Rights of the Child refers to the environment , article 24, requires States to pursue the full realization of the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution.
Older human rights instruments that were adopted before the linkage between human rights and the environment emerged, do not explicitly refer to the environment; however they were interpreted in a manner that recognizes the environmental dimensions of protected rights.
OVERVIEW OF LEGAL ISSUES –
There are three main dimensions of the inter-relationship between human rights and environmental law (Protection):
(i). The environment as a pre-requisite for the enjoyment of human rights;
(ii).