Open Letter in Support of Right to Sustainable Environment

17 leading NGOs and organisations have signed an open letter to the Minister of Climate Change, Minister of Justice and the Attorney-General in support of the Bill of Rights (Right to Sustainable Environment) Amendment Bill, which goes to its first reading on Wednesday 10 April 2024. 

Led by Lawyers for Climate Action NZ, these organisations join the 59 Kings’ Counsel who wrote in support of the proposed right in 2019, in an unprecedented show of support by the most senior and respected members of New Zealand’s legal profession. It also follows Lawyers for Climate Action’s original proposal for this amendment in 2019, which led to the Members’ Bill being introduced by Hon. James Shaw.

This Bill proposes creating a new right in New Zealand’s Bill of Rights Act: the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. This right is important for helping ensure New Zealand meets its obligations to achieve its climate goals, as well as its obligations to present and future generations. This is about ensuring New Zealand recognises protecting our environment as a priority within our constitutional framework.

New Zealand is part of a shrinking minority of only 20% of countries to not legally recognise this right. However, in 2022, New Zealand voted in favour of recognising the universal right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment at the United Nations General Assembly. Now is the time to follow-through and recognise the right under domestic law. 

Lawyers for Climate Action 2019 has been advocating for this important legal development since 2019. 

More than ever before, it is clear the climate crisis presents significant and urgent threats to the rights and freedoms of all New Zealander”. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has unequivocally confirmed that climate change is causing, and will continue to cause, significant harm - including an increasing frequency of extreme weather events, rising sea levels, floods, heat waves, and droughts. It is difficult to conceive of a more fundamental challenge to the full and effective enjoyment of New Zealanders’ human rights than climate change.

Practically, the Bill would mean that, while not interfering with Parliamentary sovereignty:

  • New  legislation would be interpreted consistently with the right to a sustainable environment where possible in accordance with section 6 of NZBORA;

  • Decisions by Government agencies that affect the right to a sustainable environment would need to engage with whether the limit on the right is justified under section 5 of NZBORA; and

  • New legislation would be vetted for compliance with the right to a sustainable environment by the Attorney-General under section 7 of NZBORA.

Thank you to all the other organisations for supporting this open letter. These organisations are:

  • 350 Aotearoa

  • Amnesty International

  • Citizens' Climate Lobby New Zealand

  • Climate Club NZ

  • Climate Karanga

  • Environment Hubs Aotearoa

  • Environmental Law Initiative

  • Equal Justice Project

  • Ora Taiao (NZ Climate & Health Council)

  • Pure Advantage

  • Students for Climate Change Solutions

  • Unicef

  • Victoria University of Wellington Climate Clinic

  • Wise Response

  • World Vision

  • WWF

LCANZI