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A "clean" environment is so subjective and temporal, I don't understand how it can be a "human" right... Why does UN keep digging into this hole of irrelevancy

A "clean" environment is so subjective and temporal, I don't understand how it can be a "human" right... Why does UN keep digging into this hole of irrelevancy and bs?

FredPret 5y ago
Also, if it is a right, who is to provide it?
- maccolgan 5y ago
  Yeah, that too, it feels like this very easily can be used to violate sovereign rights...
- gnomewascool 5y ago
  Who is to provide, say, "a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family", which is also a basic human right, as listed by the original (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights[0]? The fact that there's nobody to provide it, doesn't mean that it's not a basic human right. [0] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
  - colpabar 5y ago
    I think people take issue with rights that must be provided by some external party because if said external party is not providing said rights, what do they really mean? Part of the argument is that human rights should only include "rules" that say what cannot be done to you, like us-style free speech, where the government cannot put you in prison just for saying something they don't like.
    - gnomewascool 5y ago
      What about rights like the right to freedom from slavery or torture which, on the one hand, are about things not being done to you, but on the other may depend on third parties (for instance a government) from preventing people from doing these things to you? The declaration on human rights is not really government-centric, so the US-style free speech comparison makes little sense. > what do they really mean? They're a yardstick to measure how well we as humanity, and, more specifically particular regions or systems, measure up to what we, as humanity, consider to be the things that every human should (expect to) have. (Sorry for the bombasity.) For instance, if we lived in a libertarian/anarchist utopia, with no government, it would still make sense to ask whether people's human rights were being met.
  - shock-value 5y ago
    Yes that's also a "right" that is devoid of legal, moral, or practical meaning. As is any "right" to any exhaustible resource. The UDHR is an aspirational document that has no legal force in and of itself.
- pueblito 5y ago
  Rights are inalienable, no one provides them
  - einszwei 5y ago
    rights aren't inalienable because they can be taken away.
  - throwaways885 5y ago
    While I agree in principle, it's not true in practice. Look at the debate around making Internet access a right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access Same debate around free healthcare et al, which last time I checked somebody had to provide.
- burkaman 5y ago
  Who is to provide your right to life?
  - FredPret 5y ago
    It’s been mostly me to be honest
    - burkaman 5y ago
      Yeah, it's a right that others cannot infringe, but no single person can provide. The same is true of your right to a safe and healthy environment.
mgbmtl 5y ago
All rights subjective and temporal. Just take the question of freedom of speech, and how that evolves in time, how it varies between countries (even between allied countries, such as the US and Canada). One could argue that the desire for an increased level of comfort of one set of people should not happen at the detriment of the right to clean water, for example, of another set of people. Many countries will have their own standards, or their own double-standards. I think it's a very relevant debate.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  There's a difference between a right, which is an expression of an ideal — what a person may not be deprived of by virtue of being human — and how protection for that right is implemented in practice under different governments. That is, the varying extents to which governments respect a given right doesn't mean the right differs by country, only that those governments disagree on how to infringe on it.
  - mgbmtl 5y ago
    We might then agree that "the protection of rights is subjective and temporal". I think the basic argument still holds: such topics should be debated :)
- shock-value 5y ago
  As in this case, the "right" to clean water (or any other exhaustible resource) makes no sense -- at least if described in such blunt terms. Hypothetically, what happens in a drought, when there is no water for anyone? Have your rights been violated? If so, by whom? If it's rather described as a right to nondiscrimination in the distribution of clean water (with respect to some set of properties, which could include wealth or ability to pay, but likely couldn't include large-scale geographic location due to distribution logistics), then that actually starts to make sense and can be realistically debated.
  - mgbmtl 5y ago
    You're raising interesting questions. It's a hard topic, but I think it's inevitable that we will have to tackle some of those questions. Sometimes we want to avoid a debate because we don't know the solution, but a good debate helps us find a solution. Not trying to deflect, just disagreeing with the OP's comment that such debates are BS.

A "clean" environment is so subjective and temporal, I don't understand how it can be a "human" right... Why does UN keep digging into this hole of irrelevancy and bs?

FredPret 5y ago

Also, if it is a right, who is to provide it?

maccolgan 5y ago
Yeah, that too, it feels like this very easily can be used to violate sovereign rights...
gnomewascool 5y ago
Who is to provide, say, "a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family", which is also a basic human right, as listed by the original (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights[0]? The fact that there's nobody to provide it, doesn't mean that it's not a basic human right. [0] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
- colpabar 5y ago
  I think people take issue with rights that must be provided by some external party because if said external party is not providing said rights, what do they really mean? Part of the argument is that human rights should only include "rules" that say what cannot be done to you, like us-style free speech, where the government cannot put you in prison just for saying something they don't like.
  - gnomewascool 5y ago
    What about rights like the right to freedom from slavery or torture which, on the one hand, are about things not being done to you, but on the other may depend on third parties (for instance a government) from preventing people from doing these things to you? The declaration on human rights is not really government-centric, so the US-style free speech comparison makes little sense. > what do they really mean? They're a yardstick to measure how well we as humanity, and, more specifically particular regions or systems, measure up to what we, as humanity, consider to be the things that every human should (expect to) have. (Sorry for the bombasity.) For instance, if we lived in a libertarian/anarchist utopia, with no government, it would still make sense to ask whether people's human rights were being met.
- shock-value 5y ago
  Yes that's also a "right" that is devoid of legal, moral, or practical meaning. As is any "right" to any exhaustible resource. The UDHR is an aspirational document that has no legal force in and of itself.
pueblito 5y ago
Rights are inalienable, no one provides them
- einszwei 5y ago
  rights aren't inalienable because they can be taken away.
- throwaways885 5y ago
  While I agree in principle, it's not true in practice. Look at the debate around making Internet access a right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Internet_access Same debate around free healthcare et al, which last time I checked somebody had to provide.
burkaman 5y ago
Who is to provide your right to life?
- FredPret 5y ago
  It’s been mostly me to be honest
  - burkaman 5y ago
    Yeah, it's a right that others cannot infringe, but no single person can provide. The same is true of your right to a safe and healthy environment.

mgbmtl 5y ago

All rights subjective and temporal. Just take the question of freedom of speech, and how that evolves in time, how it varies between countries (even between allied countries, such as the US and Canada). One could argue that the desire for an increased level of comfort of one set of people should not happen at the detriment of the right to clean water, for example, of another set of people. Many countries will have their own standards, or their own double-standards. I think it's a very relevant debate.

JasonFruit 5y ago
There's a difference between a right, which is an expression of an ideal — what a person may not be deprived of by virtue of being human — and how protection for that right is implemented in practice under different governments. That is, the varying extents to which governments respect a given right doesn't mean the right differs by country, only that those governments disagree on how to infringe on it.
- mgbmtl 5y ago
  We might then agree that "the protection of rights is subjective and temporal". I think the basic argument still holds: such topics should be debated :)
shock-value 5y ago
As in this case, the "right" to clean water (or any other exhaustible resource) makes no sense -- at least if described in such blunt terms. Hypothetically, what happens in a drought, when there is no water for anyone? Have your rights been violated? If so, by whom? If it's rather described as a right to nondiscrimination in the distribution of clean water (with respect to some set of properties, which could include wealth or ability to pay, but likely couldn't include large-scale geographic location due to distribution logistics), then that actually starts to make sense and can be realistically debated.
- mgbmtl 5y ago
  You're raising interesting questions. It's a hard topic, but I think it's inevitable that we will have to tackle some of those questions. Sometimes we want to avoid a debate because we don't know the solution, but a good debate helps us find a solution. Not trying to deflect, just disagreeing with the OP's comment that such debates are BS.