The 48th Session of the Human Rights Council Item 3: EOV on Draft Resolution L.23/Rev.1 titled: The human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment by Minister Counsellor TAGUCHI Kazuho, Permanent Mission of Japan (8 October 2021)

 
Japan would like to express its gratitude to the members of the Core Group for their efforts, and in particular, for engaging the consultations in a transparent and constructive manner.  
 
As we have already stated in the consultations, from Japan’s perspective, we consider that “environmental rights” are still ambiguous as a legal concept and are not universally recognized.
 
In particular, “the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment” referred to in this resolution has the potential to be extremely broad in scope and remains to be clearly defined. Therefore, such a right cannot be considered as an established right in international human rights law. Consequently, we do not consider this resolution as altering the content of existing international law.
 
For these reasons, Japan is not able to fully support this resolution and will abstain.
 
Thank you.