Healthy and safe living and working environment : drafting and interpretation of laws in an international perspective

Abstract

Human rights legislation and environmental law have developed as separate branches within the legal field. Yet, as they gathered speed and became increasingly complex these two areas became intrinsically linked. The discussion starts off with an insight into the early legal documents, namely the Stockholm Declaration and the Rio Declaration, which gave birth to the intrinsic link between human rights and environmental legislation. Starting off with an insight into the theoretical aspect encircling these two legal fields, this project moves on to identify the common elements existing between these two vast areas. In a quest to show that certain acts are detrimental to both human health and the environment a number of issues have been picked out to set the example. Insight is given into air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination, pesticides, asbestos, genetically modified organisms, fireworks, noise and waste management. The research conducted identifies the international, regional and domestic laws that were developed to regulate these hazards. Moreover, the analysis also takes due account of the hazards that ensue from the aforementioned issues. In the end it results that all of these issues tend to impinge negatively both on human health as well as on the environment and are thus emerging as an ever growing cause of human diseases and endangered environment. Aiming at the improvement of the health and safety of human beings in their working and living environment, as well as at the protection of the human environment, this project also delves into the complexities of the drafting and interpretation of laws. The realms of human rights, occupational legislation and environmental law are too delicate in nature and they thus require that any laws produced in these fields are devoid of interpretative problems and are thus to be drafted in clear as opposed to ambiguous terms so that the interpretation is crystal clear. Moreover, human health and environmental protection need to be backed up by adequate sanctions to ensure that any act or omission is duly punished and remedied, whenever this is possible!