Towards a universal recognition of environmental responsibilities

摘要

It was just over 50 years ago that the fledgling United Nations expressed its revulsion against the German wartime atrocities, doing so by means of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNGA 1948). The 30 principles declared in 1948 were eventually solidified in 1966 via two widely adopted international covenants (Afghanistan et al. 1966a, b). However, the need for environmental conservation was nowhere directly mentioned in any of these three landmark documents. Nonetheless, their fundamental principle that every human being has the inherent right to life (UNGA 1948, Article 3; Afghanistan et al. 1966a, Article 6.1) has been inferred to imply the need for an environment adequate for the fulfillment of that right (Westing 1993).