A half-century journey of human rights and the environment: from separation to integration

Environmental governance and human rights protection have been developed in isolation from each other in the international legal arena for a very long time. In the face of mounting global environmental problems, such as climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, which are significantly impairing the enjoyment of human rights, there is an urgent call to open a new environmental horizon in human rights narratives, thereby enhancing sustainable environmental governance from a human rights perspective. However, only in the last couple of decades have the legal regimes that protect the rights of human beings and those that aim to protect the natural environment entered into dialogue with one another to create the interdisciplinary field of human rights in environmental matters through the United Nations system. The half-century journey of integrating human rights and the environment has vividly proved that neither human rights promotion nor environmental protection can be fully achieved without respect for each other.