“A fisher[man] who can no longer eat the fish he catches because the water has been polluted might immediately understand the environmental impact but may not know that access to safe and nutritious food is actually a human right to which he is entitled.” (Human Rights Impact Assessments for Foreign Investment Projects, International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, 2007, p. 17).
Before the recent disaster at BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, one could assume that no BP executive imagined that our “fisherman” with the inedible catch might be an American, let alone a Gulf Coast resident. To the extent that BP’s leaders contemplated any environmental mishap in the Gulf, it’s likely that they didn’t think they were flirting with human-rights violations. It is fair to ask, “Why not”
The suffering of the Gulf population results from human-rights violations. Since the dawn of the human-rights idea 60 years ago, international norms have established as fundamental human rights the opportunity for an adequate standard of living, to gainful employment, and to health. Our entitlement to a clean environment is a human right that is 30 years old and well established.
