Last week, on March 20, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution to appoint an Independent Expert on Human Rights and the Environment. The connection between human rights and the environment gained attention in the UN system around the time of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. As someone who has worked in the field since the 1990s, I have seen firsthand the efforts over the past two decades to show how human rights and environmental protections are often intertwined. With Rio+20 on the horizon in June, the appointment of an Independent Expert is potentially a significant advance that could bring more attention to the linkages, along with the upcoming summit.
