At a time when climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss are threatening the health and livelihoods of many communities, there is a pressing need to find new ways to protect the precious ecosystems on which human life depends. Rights to health, water, food and a decent standard of living cannot be realised if we continue to destroy our environment. Enshrining the right to a healthy environment in law is one way we can hold governments to account for the benefit of future generations.

The movement for enshrining this right in law is growing. Over 155 countries globally recognise the right to a healthy environment through national and regional laws. Australia is not one of them. However, in 2022, the ACT Government launched a review on whether the right to a healthy environment should be included in the ACT Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Law Centre provided detailed advice in a submission that calls on the ACT Government to lead the nation and recognise the right to a healthy environment in the Human Rights Act.

The oppression of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ rights, knowledges and practices by governments since colonisation is a driver of the current climate and environmental crisis in Australia, which in turn acutely threatens rights to Country, culture and wellbeing. Our submission therefore urged the ACT Government to ensure that the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the ACT are prioritised in defining the right to a healthy environment.

In November 2022, we secured a win, with the ACT Government announcing that in 2023 they will introduce the right to a healthy environment into the ACT Human Rights Act, and that they will consult with the community further on how this will be precisely worded.