Page 13 - รายงานการศึกษาวิจัย เรื่อง ความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างสิทธิมนุษยชนและสิ่งแวดล้อมเพื่อการคุ้มครองสิทธิมนุษยชนที่เกี่ยวกับสิ่งแวดล้อมอย่างยั่งยืน

ส�ำนักงำนคณะกรรมกำรสิทธิมนุษยชนแห่งชำติ

interdependence. Since human rights are rights that cannot be separated from
each other, the usage of one particular right has to consider any impacts on

other rights. Similarly, violation one type of right might have impacts on
the violation of other type of rights.
In addition, human rights can be historically divided into

three generations: the first generation of human rights are civil
rights and political rights; the second generation of human rights
are social rights, economic rights and cultural rights; and the

third generation of human rights are collective rights such as right to
development, right to good environment, etc. It must be noted that
the third generation of human rights are not yet accepted by scholars and

practices of most countries.
Human rights can be classified into two groups: substantive rights which mean

rights that have their own contents completely such as right to life, right to health, etc.; and
procedural rights which mean rights that function as process and means leading to the protection
of substantive rights such as right to information, right to participation in decision-making process, and

right to access to justice.

Human Rights and Environment

International documents in form of “soft law”, namely Stockholm Declaration and Rio

Declaration which are documents having no legally binding for any State to comply with, play vital
roles at the international human rights law forum in recommending principles or concepts on
managing the relation between human and nature, building awareness on environmental protection,

having influence on the development of right to environment in forms of substantive rights,
procedural rights and rights of indigenous people, and finally causing the use of human rights as one
mechanism in protecting environment at both international and regional levels.

Although most international documents in form of “hard law” relating to environmental
protection adopt principles from the Stockholm Declaration and the Rio Declaration, none of them

has contents recognizing the right to environment as one type of human rights except one particular
document namely the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and its protocol: the Additional
Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights in the area of Economic, Social, and Cultural

Rights. The Charter establishes the new kind of human rights called “right to good environment
favorable to development”.

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