RIGHT TO ENVIRONMENT AND RIGHT TO HEALTH: MANIFESTATIONSOF HUMAN RIGHTS

“The earth, the air, the land and the water are not an inheritance from our fore fathers but on
loan from our children. So we have to handover to them at least as it was handed over to us.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
The World Health Organization says, health is a state of complete physical, mental and social
well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.2 How seriously India has taken health
related issues is clear from the statistics given by WHO.
Statistics3
Total population (2012) 1,240,000,000
Gross national income per capita (PPP international $, 2012) 3,910
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years, 2011) 64/67
Probability of= dying under five (per 1 000 live births, 2012) 56
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population, 2011) 247/159
Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2011) 141
Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2011) 3.9
India is the second largest populated country in the world next to china. It has the potential to
benefit from its huge population as labour force as China does. This will be possible only when people
are in good health. Good health is directly related to the environment in which people live. The 1972
Stockholm Declaration proclaimed that man’s natural and man-made environment are essential to his
well-being and to the enjoyment of basic human rights-even the right to life itself. In 1986, the United
Nations General Assembly recognized the relationship between the quality of human environment and
the enjoyment of basic human rights4. The 1992 Rio Declaration emphasized sustainable development
and environmental protection.5The basic human right of right to life is meaningless without the right
to health and the related rights to environment. This paper is an attempt to find out the constitutional
provisions of India focusing on Environment and health and the legislative and judicial response to
this issue.