Empowering Change Through Expertise and Ethics

The United Nations General Assembly adopts the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

The ICCPR and the ICESCR would later become international law in 1976 and together, serve as the body of international human rights law that articulates the ideals set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The documents predate the movement around environmental rights but articulate rights that are closely linked with the environment, including the rights to life, health, and an adequate standard of living.

United Nations Conference on Human Rights and the Environment, the first of its kind, convenes in Stockholm.

The conference produced the “Stockholm Declaration,” which articulated a set of principles around the environment, the first being the principle that man has a fundamental right to live in a quality environment that allows for dignity and well-being. Though the outcome was a soft law statement without a direct declaration of a human right to the environment, it provoked many governments to begin to consider whether environmental rights should be entitled to their citizens and whether those rights should be protected at the constitutional level. The Declaration paved the way for many national commitments.

The United Nations creates a Center on Transnational Corporations whose goal was to create normative frameworks that could regulate the increasing power of multinational companies.

The draft code of conduct requested that multinational corporations “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms in the countries in which they operate” in addition to enforcing other principles such as freedom from discrimination and equal opportunity. The Center eventually abandoned the code after receiving pushback from Global North countries and business enterprises.

The OECD launches the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which consisted of recommendations by governments to multinational enterprises. 

• Though the first iteration of the Guidelines only briefly touched on human rights, the Guidelines today contain robust recommendations on corporate human rights responsibilities and are considered one of the most important current standards influencing business conduct.

Portugal becomes the first country to adopt a constitutional right to a healthy environment.

• Following Portugal, an additional 100 States would come to adopt a similar right in their constitutions. Regional human rights agreements, such as the 1981 African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the 2004 Arab Charter on Human Rights would do the same.

Reverend Leon Sullivan, an African-American board member of General Motors, establishes a workplace code of conduct eventually known as the “Sullivan Principles” as a protest strategy against the South African Apartheid. 

• Companies that adopted the Sullivan Principles committed to divesting from the country if any of the principles, which focused on worker treatment and equality, were breached. By the end of 1977, over a hundred American corporations had adopted the Principles. The movement marked the emergence of a sense of corporate social responsibility directed toward influencing political and social conditions within and beyond the workplace. 
• In the 70s, other corporate responsibility movements were ongoing, including a key non-violent protest movement by the Ogoni people, led by “Ken” Saro-Wiwa, in reaction to extensive environmental destruction by Royal Dutch Shell company and other petroleum corporations.

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development produces the Rio Declaration.

Though the Rio Declaration did not assert a human right to the environment, it did strongly emphasize procedural rights around the environment, such as citizens’ rights to access information, participate in decision-making, and access redress for environment-related abuses. Today, these rights are widely accepted norms.

In Lopez Ostra v. Spain, the European Court of Human Rights confirms that certain civil and political rights, such as the right to private and family life, could justify environment-related protections and redress for affected parties.

The Court determined that a case of pollution had severely prevented Lopez Ostra from realizing rights protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. The case demonstrated a clear linkage between civil and political rights on one side and affected economic, social, and cultural rights.

The Nigerian government imprisons and kills Ken Saro-Wiwa, a key environmental activist who spent decades protesting against international oil companies in Ogoniland, Nigeria.

The act sparked international outrage, resulted in a three-year suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth of Nations, and set off a series of movements aimed at pushing Global North companies to address their complicity in human rights violations in other countries.

In the aftermath of Saro-Wiwa’s death, several groups bring lawsuits against Shell for its role in human rights abuses in Nigeria.

The lawsuits were brought under the 1798 Alien Tort Statute, which allows non-US citizens to file lawsuits in US courts for abuse conducted abroad, and the Torture Victim Protection Act. Shell decided to settle out-of-court just days ahead of the trial in 2009. Though no judicial ruling emerged, the lawsuit helped spark a series of other suits aimed at international companies, which in turn increasingly elevated the exposure of the business and human rights struggle.

The United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights passes Resolution 1998/8, which establishes a working group to examine the activities of transnational corporations, including their effects on human rights.

The working group would later decide to prepare a Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations in 1999 and ultimately drafted a document entitled the “Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with regard to Human Rights” (popularly called ‘the Norms’). The draft articulated eighteen human rights principles that related to the activities of international corporations.

The European Union and 46 States sign the Aarhus Convention, a treaty focused on articulating procedural environmental rights.

• A direct extension of the Rio Declaration, the Aarhus Convention was a legally binding environmental convention that, if ratified by a State, enforced the public’s right to participate in environmental decision-making and have access to information. It would later influence the adoption of the 2018 Escazu ́ Agreement in Latin America and the Caribbean that articulated similar procedural environmental rights, which would in turn become binding law in 2021.

The Secretary General of the United Nations launches the Global Compact.

The Global Compact was the first soft-law, UN-led initiative that fully revolved around corporate human rights responsibilities. It requires all participating companies to embrace and help realize ten principles that emanate from four core areas of human rights, labor, corruption, and the environment.

The UN Commission on Human Rights rejects the Norms, citing disagreement with the stated legal implications for businesses and States.

• The Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights adopted the Norms in 2003 but failed to convince the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) of the document’s legal legitimacy. The UNHCR found the Norms far more expansive than appropriate and claimed that it had not requested the Sub-Commission to pursue the initiative in the first place. 
• The rejection would ultimately pave the way for the future emergence of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. In reaction to the rejection of the Norms, the UN Secretary-General appointed Professor John Ruggie to continue research on the issue. Professor Ruggie would ultimately decide that the differing responsibilities of States and business enterprises needed to be further articulated and began drafting the Guiding Principles.

Ecuador includes the “right to nature” within its constitution.

This marked the first time a State had enshrined rights to nature and clarified the content of such rights. The right has subsequently been applied in numerous legal disputes, including a landmark ruling in 2021 that determined that a mining permit in Los Cedros was unconstitutional because it would violate the rights of nature. Other countries like Bolivia and New Zealand would follow in Ecuador’s footsteps.

The United Nations passes a new resolution that recognizes the human right to water and sanitation

The resolution formalized that clean, safe, accessible, and affordable drinking water was a fundamental right for all. The decision clarified State obligations around the resource and represented a key step in linking environmental outcomes with human rights ones.

The UN Human Rights Council unanimously passes the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

• The UNGPs are now considered the most authoritative normative framework to guide business conduct. The Principles do not establish any binding norms nor lay out an enforcement strategy, but they do clearly delineate the scope of corporate human rights responsibilities. This delineation, which businesses and governments alike widely endorse, serves as the launching point to justify corporate responsibilities and to set expectations for business conduct. 
• With the passing of the UNGPs, the UN established the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights whose mission is to promote the UNGPs and identify and disseminate rights-abiding best practices.

Dissatisfied with the inability of the UNGPs to prevent corporate-driven abuses, Ecuador and South Africa lead 80 states in submitting a statement to the Human Rights Council stating that the states would work to elaborate a legally binding instrument.

After the resolution passed the Human Rights Council, an intergovernmental working group was established to begin drafting a treaty that would regulate international business activities. Treaty discussions are still ongoing today.

The Inter-American Court of Human rules against Suriname in Kaliña and Lokono Peoples v. Suriname.

The rare and unprecedented court decision found that the relevant business enterprises had, through adverse impact on the environment, infringed on the rights of indigenous peoples. The enterprises had the duty to respect and protect human rights in addition to providing redress for impacts linked to their enterprise activities. It is unclear whether the provision of the duty to “protect” rights had been erroneous or intentional, but regardless, the case clearly presented a landmark ruling for the region concerning business human rights responsibilities in the context of environmental stewardship. 

France passes the groundbreaking Duty of Vigilance Law.

The law requires large French companies to publish an annual “vigilance plan” that articulates how the company will identify risks and prevent severe human rights and environmental abuse resulting from both company activities and the activities of companies directly or indirectly under its control. In 2023, Germany’s Supply Chain Act entered into force with similar requirements.

In a landmark decision Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell, the Hague District Court ruled that Shell (a private company) violated its human rights obligations by failing to take adequate action to curb contributions to climate change and directed the company to reduce its emissions by 45% by 2030.

The ruling was significant in that it represented the first time a court ruled for a private enterprise to align itself with the Paris Agreement. The ruling likely will set a precedent for future cases brought against private companies regarding their emission duties.

The United Nations General Assembly recognizes the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment

• This recognition followed the UN Human Rights Council’s passing of resolution 48/13 which acknowledged the right in October 2021. The landmark decision firmly established that environmental health was integral to human thriving and dignity. While the international legal recognition centered on the obligations of the State, it also included an explicit recognition of the responsibility of businesses to respect all human rights, including the rights to life, liberty, and security of environmental human rights defenders.
• The right will likely pave the way for even greater State commitment to the protection and enhancement of the environment. It will also generate new consequences of legal interpretation of the duties of business enterprises regarding environmental matters.