The Right to a Healthy Environment as a Child Human Right

The 2022 United Nations General Assembly statements on the human right to a healthy, clean, and sustainable environment further entrenched the human rights conversation by allowing for children's rights to be mainstreamed in environmental policy. Children continue to be disproportionately impacted by climate change effects, pollution, and loss of biodiversity, accounting for over 1.7 million preventable environmental deaths annually. This article takes the child's right to a healthy environment as a legally binding human right from the theory of intergenerational justice. Employing a comparative and doctrinal approach, it charts international instruments, UNCRC, SDGs, and trailblazing cases such as Sacchi, Urgenda, and Oposa, and Indian, South African, Norwegian, Dutch, and Philippine constitutional case law. Despite growing court recognition, some child-led protection is still cosmetic. The research espouses embracing intergenerational justice, better enforcement, and passing child-specific legislation as a way of developing a permanent, rights-oriented environmental future.