GENEVA/NAIROBI — Everyone has the right to live in a world free from toxic pollution and environmental degradation, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has concluded.

The decision, the first time the Commission has addressed the links between the environment and human rights, was made at its annual meeting which ended last week in Geneva.

Mary Robinson, the high commissioner for Human Rights, and Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, have been invited to organise an international seminar to explore how environmental and human rights principles can be strengthened.

Toepfer welcomed the historic move by noting that many of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have significant environmental dimensions.

“Environmental conditions clearly help to determine the extent to which people enjoy their basic rights to life, health, adequate food and housing, and traditional livelihood and culture. It is time to recognise that those who pollute or destroy the natural environment are not just committing a crime against nature, but are violating human rights as well,” he said.

The results of the seminar will be considered at the Commission’s next session in March 2002 and will feed into the review of progress towards sustainable development that has been achieved since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

This 10-year review will form the basis for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be convened in Johannesburg in September 2002.