Youth Voice Matters: The Critical Nature of Youth Participation in Achieving the Right to a Healthy Environment

Publication Title

Northeastern University Law Review

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

Abstract

In 2022, the United Nations recognized the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right. The UN Resolution urged “[s]tates, international organizations, business enterprises and other relevant stakeholders to adopt policies, to enhance international cooperation, strengthen capacity-building and continue to share good practices in order to scale up efforts to ensure a clean, healthy and sustainable environment for all.” Although governments and global corporations are clearly the primary targets of this call to action given their power to affect—and address—climate change, there is arguably no more central a stakeholder in humanity’s response to climate change than children. Children and youth will be, and in many respects already are, the population most affected by climate change. Yet they are largely overlooked and relegated to the margins in many public and private sector efforts to address climate change. This essay calls for a mainstreaming of children and children’s rights in both public and private sector dialogues and action on climate change. Further, governments and civil society must not only make their spaces inclusive of young people, but they must also make space for and support children’s own vision and initiatives. In short, the true potential of the right to a healthy environment cannot be realized without meaningful input from young people or without mainstreaming young people’s rights and leadership.

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Recommended Citation

Jonathan Todres, Youth Voice Matters: The Critical Nature of Youth Participation in Achieving the Right to a Healthy Environment, 15 Ne. U.L. Rev. 763 (2023).

Volume

15

Issue

2

First Page

763

Last Page

777

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