The RIGHT TO A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT AS AN AUTONOMOUS RIGHT IN THE INTER-AMERICAN HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM

Abstract

The Advisory Opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights No. OC-23/17, of 15 November 2017, on "Environment and Human Rights" and the ruling in the case Lhaka Honhat V. Argentina of 6 February 2020, develops the content of the right to a healthy environment from an approach that we could see as ecocentric. This right, as an autonomous right, protects nature not only because of its usefulness for human beings (anthropocentric-instrumental vision), but also because of its importance for other living organisms with which the planet is shared (biocentric-not instrumental vision). This paper analyzes this new right, giving an account of the possible legal philosophical presuppositions that inform it, as well as the possible changes that this new approach may bring to the Inter-American System of Human Rights.