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  • People are facing a threat we've never faced before:

  • environmental disasters.

  • This programme will show you how the law is adapting

  • to keep the world itself safe, by protecting our environment.

  • Does nature have any legal rights?

  • How can laws developed for humans be adapted to protect nature?

  • We'll show how laws are increasingly being used to protect our environment.

  • The environment is being threatened like never before.

  • Human activity is changing the world around us,

  • warming the air and sea.

  • Extreme floods, droughts and wildfires are increasingly common

  • and affect all continents and oceans.

  • Can the law help?

  • Laws are basically an agreement between people.

  • How can you have an agreement with something that's not a person

  • a tree for example?

  • We depend on the world around us:

  • we need clean air, clean water

  • and clean earth to live.

  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

  • says everyone has the right to life and security.

  • We can't have either life or security without a healthy environment.

  • So, that's where the law comes in.

  • Environmental laws started really being developed

  • in the middle of the last century.

  • With more and more countries agreeing treatiesinternational agreements

  • there is greater willingness to engage in conversations

  • about how to prevent environmental disasters.

  • Rizwana Hasan, a climate lawyer from Bangladesh,

  • explained some of the laws keeping the environment safe.

  • There are UN-sponsored international laws

  • to deal with issues like climate change,

  • ozone layer depletion, protection of biological diversity,

  • protection of international watercourses,

  • protection of endangered species,

  • regulation on persistent organic pollutants.

  • There are also laws that are made by regional organisations,

  • like the European Union targeting the European environment.

  • Many laws come from global organisations,

  • others from regional bodies like the European Union.

  • They cover a huge range of areas.

  • But what kind of laws are they and what power do they have?

  • There are soft laws and there are hard laws.

  • Soft laws are mere political commitments; they are not binding.

  • Hard laws are binding: so, if a state ratifies a hard law

  • and then does something that is against

  • the letters and spirits of the law,

  • then you can actually file a case against the state.

  • There are two main types of law:

  • soft laws, which are more like political commitments or aims,

  • and hard laws.

  • You can be punished for breaking a hard law.

  • Rizwana explained how environmental law

  • features in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

  • In one article, where it says that states have to endeavour

  • to improve all aspects of industrial and environmental hygiene.

  • We do have two covenants:

  • one covenant deals with the civil and political rights

  • and the other covenant deals with the economic, social and cultural rights.

  • They do not expressly talk about environmental rights,

  • but protection of environment is linked to enjoyment

  • of your civil, political, social and economic rights.

  • Similarly, the enjoyment of your social, political, economic

  • and cultural rights also depend on

  • your enjoyment of environmental rights.

  • So, the big human rights laws

  • don't actually say very much about the environment.

  • But many of your rights depend on it:

  • without a safe environment, we couldn't enjoy our rights.

  • Are there any laws that give us a safe environment?

  • It was this year only, that in March 2021,

  • 69 countries have agreed to work together

  • to ensure that there is an international law

  • that will recognise people's right to help the environment.

  • The work is about to begin. The major obstacle...

  • the major obstacles remain lack of political commitment.

  • Although there is an agreement to make a law

  • to recognise your right to help the environment,

  • the big problem is getting people to follow it.

  • We saw how, despite there not being much law

  • directly about the environment,

  • many of your rights depend on it.

  • Is that enough to help in the real world?

  • Climate change is harming people now.

  • In 2018, more than 35,000 people were forced to flee their homes

  • in the Mekong Delta every day.

  • The Mekong River is the agricultural heartland of Vietnam

  • and home to 20% of the country's population.

  • But the Mekong river doesn't just flow through Vietnam.

  • It starts in the Tibetan plateau,

  • also going through China, Myanmar,

  • Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.

  • So, to prevent people in Vietnam fleeing their homes,

  • we need an international agreement.

  • Another river, another problem, and a fresh legal approach.

  • The Ganges in India: viewed as holy by millions of people,

  • but it's also very polluted.

  • To protect it, the river was, for 109 days,

  • declared a legal person by a court in the state of Uttarakhand.

  • It was given the same rights as a child:

  • as it couldn't speak for itself, a board was appointed to speak for it.

  • The Government eventually said this couldn't go on,

  • as the river went beyond the limits of Uttarakhand.

  • So, can the law protect the environment,

  • as well as the people who are affected by it?

  • We spoke to Francesco Sindico,

  • a law professor from the University of Strathclyde,

  • who works on the Climate Change Litigation Initiative,

  • and asked if there were laws directly protecting the environment.

  • We have a lot of smaller laws, if you want,

  • that protect specific aspects of the environment

  • for example, rivers; for example, wetlands or biodiversity

  • but there is no such thing as one big law

  • for every single country of the world

  • that protects the whole environment.

  • Now, having said that, if you think

  • that climate change encapsulates everything,

  • then the answer is slightly different.

  • There is a law called the Paris Agreement

  • that does try to deal with everything.

  • There are lots of small laws that deal with specific things,

  • and there is also the Paris Agreement on climate change

  • a major international agreement.

  • But what does it actually do?

  • So, the Paris Agreement does something very tricky, in a way:

  • it tells the states that they can choose

  • how to protect their environment and with...

  • by doing so, climate change.

  • Before the Paris Agreement, international law told countries:

  • 'You have to do this!'

  • While now, with the Paris Agreement,

  • international law is saying to the countries:

  • 'Tell me what you can do

  • and then we will all work together towards that goal.'

  • The Paris Agreement doesn't set laws or tell countries what to do.

  • It set goals for climate change,

  • but allows countries to decide how to meet them.

  • But, with a specific problem

  • for example, flooding on the Mekong River

  • how could the law help?

  • So, if a neighbouring country from Vietnam

  • causes something that leads to a flood,

  • which is significant, which creates a lot of damage,

  • then Vietnam does have something in its weaponry, if you want:

  • it can sue. It can bring to court that other state.

  • But, if the... if the question is

  • 'how do we prevent that from happening?'

  • then it's a much more difficult thing to ask.

  • One country can sue another if they can prove they have caused something,

  • like damaging flooding.

  • He also explained how giving a river legal rights

  • might not be such a strange idea.

  • So, while in India it may not have worked,

  • in other countries it has worked.

  • So, in Colombia for example, a river has been given rights.

  • But the reason it has worked is that,

  • in addition to giving rights to the river,

  • a commission has been created of guardian of the river

  • and it's this institution, this taking it forward,

  • that is proving successful

  • in providing a better environment for the river

  • and for the people who rely on the river.

  • Other rivers have been protected this way.

  • This was made more effective by also having a team of guardians

  • to protect their rights.

  • The law might not have much direct power to protect the environment,

  • but our human rights are used to help keep it safe.

  • We've also seen how the Paris Agreement

  • encourages countries to take action:

  • an example of laws keeping us

  • and future generations safe.

People are facing a threat we've never faced before:

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