The protection of our environment is a vital part of contemporary human rights doctrine as it affects the right to life and the right to health. In the lead up to the People’s Permanent Tribunal on Human Rights and Unconventional Gas, NTN has prepared its testimony regarding the industry’s impacts on the health of residents and its threats to our basic human right to live in a pollution-free world.
In 2001, the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) acknowledged that ‘living in a pollution-free world is a basic human right’ and those who pollute violate these rights. Australia has also ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which specifically describe a child’s right to health, adequate food and clean water, “taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution.”
Despite this, citizens, including vulnerable children, in gas fields and around gas infrastructure across Australia, are exposed to toxic chemicals through the industry’s chemical releases, contaminated dust, storage ponds and associated waste water spills, accidents and fugitive emissions.
You can watch testimony from Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith and Dr Geralyn MacCarron and many others here.
You can read NTN’s submission here.
