In one ear and out the other: Human rights consultations and environmental discourses for human rights in Australasia

Abstract

This Chapter identifies three environmental discourses supporting the statutory protection of a right to a healthy environment within Australasia. They are discourses of intergenerational equity, internationalism, and environmental justice. They are the discourses underpinning the widespread community support for a right to environmental protection in the region. Despite these discourses being developed and advanced in the human rights consultations, they are not present in law. Governments and consultation bodies have dismissed the calls for a statutory human right to the environment, ignored submissions or have conflated nuanced legal analysis and arguments, all with the effect of submergi..