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Clean environment could become U.N. human right

reuters.com

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Re: Clean environment could become U.N. human right

#91

Post by Veen »

tgb wrote: post #84
a_diplomat wrote: post #73

Hi. Diplomat working with UN issues here. The issue at hand here is not this resolution in itself. It's the fact that opening up human rights to "new" rights sets a precedent. And that precedent will be used by other countries to shift the language on human rights in a more authoritarian direction - or dilute human rights as such. So it's basically about using one set of issues, which in substance are hard to fight,…

Interesting. Can you expand on an example of a 'new' human right that would be authoritarian in nature? I don't really understand the "right to development" example. It looks like it was adopted by the UN already in 1986 and I'm not sure if the authoritarian implications. https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/righttod...

> Can you expand on an example of a 'new' human right that would be authoritarian in nature

How about a right to live in a community free of external interference—a stronger version of the right to self-determination? You could argue that it would prevent acts of external aggression, but it could also be used to prevent aid when a nation's people are being oppressed.

Re: Clean environment could become U.N. human right

#92

Post by colpabar »

gnomewascool wrote: post #80
FredPret wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, if it is a right, who is to provide it?

Who is to provide, say, "a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family", which is also a basic human right, as listed by the original (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights[0]? The fact that there's nobody to provide it, doesn't mean that it's not a basic human right. [0] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

I think people take issue with rights that must be provided by some external party because if said external party is not providing said rights, what do they really mean? Part of the argument is that human rights should only include "rules" that say what cannot be done to you, like us-style free speech, where the government cannot put you in prison just for saying something they don't like.

Re: Clean environment could become U.N. human right

#94

Post by selectodude »

lodovic wrote: post #67
z3ncyberpunk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has more renewable energy than any one in the world

Does that mean China and Russia approve of making a clean environment a human right?

I would imagine China will demand a clean environment be a human right and then turn around and say they have no duty to help with it because they have been and always will be a “developing nation”.

Re: Clean environment could become U.N. human right

#95

Post by throwaways885 »

pueblito wrote: post #86
FredPret wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, if it is a right, who is to provide it?

Rights are inalienable, no one provides them

While I agree in principle, it's not true in practice.

Look at the debate around making Internet access a right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access

Same debate around free healthcare et al, which last time I checked somebody had to provide.

Re: Clean environment could become U.N. human right

#96

Post by croes »

snapcaster wrote: post #71
croes wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, how to you explain the WTO and the IMF? 7 billion people in the world are already ruled by a bunch of bureaucrats. But it's ok if it's for profit and not human rights, I guess.

I think both are bad. Have you ever met someone who dislikes the UN but loves the WTO and IMF? I think you're arguing against a strawman with this comment

I don't think so. The US and the EU seldom have a problem following the WTO or the IMF, but hardly do the same with the UN.

Re: Clean environment could become U.N. human right

#97

Post by JasonFruit »

mgbmtl wrote: post #82
maccolgan wrote: post #63

A "clean" environment is so subjective and temporal, I don't understand how it can be a "human" right... Why does UN keep digging into this hole of irrelevancy and bs?

All rights subjective and temporal. Just take the question of freedom of speech, and how that evolves in time, how it varies between countries (even between allied countries, such as the US and Canada). One could argue that the desire for an increased level of comfort of one set of people should not happen at the detriment of the right to clean water, for example, of another set of people. Many countries will have th…

There's a difference between a right, which is an expression of an ideal — what a person may not be deprived of by virtue of being human — and how protection for that right is implemented in practice under different governments. That is, the varying extents to which governments respect a given right doesn't mean the right differs by country, only that those governments disagree on how to infringe on it.

Re: Clean environment could become U.N. human right

#98

Post by user3939382 »

Veen wrote: post #83
a_diplomat wrote: post #73

Hi. Diplomat working with UN issues here. The issue at hand here is not this resolution in itself. It's the fact that opening up human rights to "new" rights sets a precedent. And that precedent will be used by other countries to shift the language on human rights in a more authoritarian direction - or dilute human rights as such. So it's basically about using one set of issues, which in substance are hard to fight,…

I'm always curious how diplomats and politicians regard the "rights" in the U.N. declaration of human rights. They don't conform to a defensible set of natural rights (even if it's agreed that such things exist), so are they considered a goal or a declaration of how the UN thinks people should live? Does it matter that few UN members conform to them? Or that they represent quite a specific ideological viewpoint in ma…

> Does it matter that few UN members conform to them?

Does anything the UN does matter? I don't mean that in a flippant/sarcastic way. The "teeth" of the UN is ostensibly the UN Security Council, which runs on vetoes by interests that are practically never aligned. It seems to provide cover for US policy, and when it can't serve that purpose the US does what it wants anyway either with NATO or by itself.

Re: Clean environment could become U.N. human right

#99

Post by otrahuevada »

a_diplomat wrote: post #73

Hi. Diplomat working with UN issues here. The issue at hand here is not this resolution in itself. It's the fact that opening up human rights to "new" rights sets a precedent. And that precedent will be used by other countries to shift the language on human rights in a more authoritarian direction - or dilute human rights as such. So it's basically about using one set of issues, which in substance are hard to fight,…

I do not understand this framing. Not joking, it's just... how exactly does proposing a right to not live drenched in poison present a slippery slope like the one you're proposing?

Procedurally, I mean. Presumably the same mechanisms used to vote for/against this could be used to prevent terrible people from pushing for terrible things?

Re: Clean environment could become U.N. human right

#100

Post by burkaman »

FredPret wrote: post #65
maccolgan wrote: post #63

A "clean" environment is so subjective and temporal, I don't understand how it can be a "human" right... Why does UN keep digging into this hole of irrelevancy and bs?

Also, if it is a right, who is to provide it?

Who is to provide your right to life?
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