📚 Global Governance: Human Rights and the Environment | 全球治理：人权与环境
Global governance for the environment is not only about treaties and emissions targets. It is increasingly shaped by human rights law, which gives individuals and communities legal claims to clean air, safe water, and protection from climate harm. This article explains the key ideas, institutions, and case studies that link human rights to environmental governance, using an Edexcel A-level Environmental Science lens.
全球环境治理不仅涉及条约和排放目标。它越来越受到人权法的塑造，人权法赋予个人和社区对清洁空气、安全用水和免受气候损害的法律请求权。本文用 Edexcel A-level 环境科学的视角，解释将人权与环境治理联系起来的关键理念、机构和案例研究。
1. Defining Global Environmental Governance | 全球环境治理的定义
Global environmental governance refers to the formal and informal rules, institutions, and processes through which states, international organisations, NGOs, and private actors manage transboundary environmental problems. Because ecological systems do not respect political borders, carbon emissions, ocean pollution, and biodiversity loss require coordinated action. This makes global governance different from national policy: no single government can impose a binding solution on all others.
全球环境治理是指国家、国际组织、非政府组织和私人行为体管理跨界环境问题的正式与非正式规则、机构和过程。由于生态系统不受政治边界限制，碳排放、海洋污染和生物多样性丧失都需要协调行动。这使得全球治理不同于国家政策：没有一个政府能对所有其他国家强制执行有约束力的解决方案。
The architecture includes ‘hard law’ such as binding treaties and protocols, and ‘soft law’ such as declarations, principles, and voluntary guidelines. Both matter for environmental protection: hard law creates legal obligations, while soft law shapes norms and can later become binding rules. Human rights often enter through soft law first, before being codified in national constitutions and court rulings.
这一体系包括有约束力的条约和议定书等 ‘硬法’，以及宣言、原则和自愿准则等 ‘软法’。两者对环境保护都很重要：硬法产生法律义务，软法则塑造规范并可随后发展为有约束力的规则。人权往往先通过软法进入，之后才被编入各国宪法和法院判决。
2. Human Rights as a Legal Foundation | 人权作为法律基础
Human rights provide a universal ethical and legal framework that reinforces environmental protection. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not explicitly mention the environment, but later interpretations link the rights to life, health, water, food, and adequate housing to environmental quality. In legal practice, a degraded environment can violate these rights, giving individuals and communities grounds to demand state action.
人权提供了一个普遍性的伦理和法律框架，强化了环境保护。1948 年《世界人权宣言》未明确提及环境，但后来的解释将生命权、健康权、水权、食物权和适足住房权与环境质量联系起来。在法律实践中，环境退化可能侵犯这些权利，使个人和社区有理由要求国家采取行动。
Three procedural rights are especially important in environmental governance: the right to access environmental information, the right to public participation in decision-making, and the right to access justice when environmental harm occurs. These are codified in the 1998 Aarhus Convention, which links human rights to environmental democracy and is a useful case study for Edexcel.
三项程序性权利在环境治理中尤为重要：获取环境信息的权利、参与决策的公众参与权，以及在环境损害发生时诉诸司法的权利。这些权利被写入 1998 年《奥胡斯公约》，该公约将人权与环境民主联系起来，是 Edexcel 有用的案例研究。
3. Environmental Rights and the Right to a Healthy Environment | 环境权与健康环境权
The right to a healthy environment has gained international recognition. In July 2022, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recognising a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a human right. Although General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, they strengthen the normative basis for national laws and court decisions. Many constitutions now include environmental rights, with states such as Ecuador and Bolivia recognising rights of nature alongside human rights.
健康环境权已获得国际承认。2022 年 7 月，联合国大会通过决议，承认清洁、健康和可持续的环境是一项人权。虽然大会决议不具有法律约束力，但它们增强了国家法律和法院判决的规范基础。许多国家宪法现在都包含环境权利，厄瓜多尔和玻利维亚等国在承认人权的同时也承认自然权利。
For Edexcel, the key distinction is between substantive rights, such as the right to a safe climate, clean air, and water, and procedural rights, such as access to information and participation. Both are needed because substantive rights set the goal, while procedural rights provide the tools for accountability.
对 Edexcel 而言，关键区别在于实体权利，如享有安全气候、清洁空气和水的权利，与程序权利，如获取信息和参与的权利。两者都不可或缺，因为实体权利设定目标，程序权利提供问责工具。
4. Key International Instruments: Stockholm to Paris | 关键国际文书：从斯德哥尔摩到巴黎
Modern global environmental governance began with the 1972 Stockholm Conference, which produced the Stockholm Declaration and the UN Environment Programme. Principle 1 of the Stockholm Declaration states that humans have a fundamental right to freedom, equality, and adequate conditions of life in an environment that permits a life of dignity. This was an early explicit link between human rights and the environment.
现代全球环境治理始于 1972 年斯德哥尔摩会议，该会议产生了《斯德哥尔摩宣言》和联合国环境规划署。斯德哥尔摩宣言原则 1 指出，人类享有自由、平等和在容许尊严生活的环境中获得适足生活条件的基本权利。这是人权与环境之间早期的明确联系。
Later milestones include the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, the 2015 Paris Agreement under the UNFCCC, and the Sustainable Development Goals. The Paris Agreement explicitly calls on parties to respect human rights when taking climate action, and SDG 16 promotes access to justice and accountable institutions, linking environmental objectives to governance and human rights.
后来的里程碑包括 1992 年《里约环境与发展宣言》、2015 年《联合国气候变化框架公约》下的《巴黎协定》以及可持续发展目标。《巴黎协定》明确呼吁缔约方在采取气候行动时尊重人权，可持续发展目标 16 促进司法救助和问责机构，将环境目标与治理和人权联系起来。
5. UN Mechanisms and Treaty Bodies | 联合国机制与条约机构
The UN human rights system monitors environmental dimensions of rights through several channels. The Human Rights Council appoints a Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, who documents abuses such as pollution, land grabbing, and failure to protect environmental defenders. Treaty bodies such as the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights can issue general comments and review state reports on how environmental degradation affects health, housing, and food.
联合国人权体系通过多个渠道监测环境维度的人权。人权理事会任命人权与环境问题特别报告员，记录污染、土地掠夺和未能保护环境捍卫者等侵权行为。经济、社会及文化权利委员会等条约机构可发布一般性意见，并审查各国关于环境退化如何影响健康、住房和食物的报告。
This is important for global governance because it shows that enforcement is not limited to environmental treaties. Individuals in some regional systems can bring complaints: for example, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled in cases involving toxic pollution, waste, and climate risks, even though the European Convention does not explicitly guarantee a healthy environment.
这对全球治理很重要，因为它表明执行不仅限于环境条约。在某些区域体系中，个人可以提出申诉：例如，欧洲人权法院在涉及有毒污染、废物和气候风险的案件中作出裁决，尽管《欧洲人权公约》并未明确保障健康环境。
6. Climate Change and Human Rights | 气候变化与人权
Climate change is now framed as a human rights crisis because it threatens the right to life, health, food, water, housing, and self-determination. Rising global temperatures increase extreme weather, sea-level rise, crop failure, and water stress. These impacts are unevenly distributed: low-income and marginalised groups often contribute least to greenhouse gas emissions but suffer the greatest harm, creating a clear injustice.
气候变化现在被视为一场人权危机，因为它威胁到生命权、健康权、食物权、水权、住房权和自决权。全球气温上升加剧极端天气、海平面上升、作物歉收和水资源紧张。这些影响分布不均：低收入和边缘群体通常温室气体排放最少，却遭受最大伤害，形成明显的不公正。
The 2015 Paris Agreement includes preambular recognition that parties should respect, promote, and consider human rights, the right to health, and the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, and persons with disabilities. However, the operational articles contain no binding human rights enforcement mechanism, which critics argue is a major gap.
2015 年《巴黎协定》在序言部分承认，缔约方应尊重、促进和考虑人权、健康权以及土著人民、当地社区、移民、儿童和残疾人的权利。然而，其实质性条款没有具有约束力的人权执行机制，批评者认为这是一个重大缺口。
7. Environmental Justice and Vulnerable Groups | 环境正义与弱势群体
Environmental justice links human rights to the fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens. It highlights that hazardous waste sites, polluting industries, and climate impacts are often concentrated in communities defined by race, class, gender, or indigenous status. The environmental justice movement began in the United States in the 1980s but has become a global framework.
环境正义将人权与环境利益和负担的公平分配联系起来。它强调危险废物场、污染工业和气候影响往往集中在由种族、阶级、性别或土著身份界定的社区。环境正义运动于 20 世纪 80 年代始于美国，但已成为一个全球框架。
Indigenous peoples are a key focus because they depend directly on ecosystems for culture, food, and livelihoods, yet face displacement from mining, logging, dams, and conservation projects. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples requires free, prior, and informed consent before projects affecting their lands, linking environmental governance with self-determination.
土著人民是一个关键焦点，因为他们在文化、食物和生计上直接依赖生态系统，却面临采矿、伐木、水坝和保护项目造成的流离失所。《联合国土著人民权利宣言》要求在影响其土地的项目之前获得自由、事先和知情同意，将环境治理与自决权联系起来。
8. Corporate Accountability and the UN Guiding Principles | 企业责任与联合国指导原则
Business enterprises play a major role in environmental harm, from oil spills to deforestation and carbon emissions. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) establish a ‘protect, respect and remedy’ framework: states must protect against abuses, companies must respect human rights through due diligence, and victims must have access to remedy. These apply to
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