Name: How and why is the environment protected? - BBC Learning English
Uploaded: 2021-10-18T17:10:06.000Z
Duration: 10 min 52 s
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People are facing a threat we've never faced before:

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This programme will show you how the law is adapting

to keep the world itself safe, by protecting our environment.

How can laws developed for humans be adapted to protect nature?

We'll show how laws are increasingly being used to protect our environment.

The environment is being threatened like never before.

Human activity is changing the world around us,

Extreme floods, droughts and wildfires are increasingly common

Laws are basically an agreement between people.

How can you have an agreement with something that's not a person –

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

says everyone has the right to life and security.

We can't have either life or security without a healthy environment.

Environmental laws started really being developed

With more and more countries agreeing treaties – international agreements –

there is greater willingness to engage in conversations

about how to prevent environmental disasters.

Rizwana Hasan, a climate lawyer from Bangladesh,

explained some of the laws keeping the environment safe.

There are UN-sponsored international laws

ozone layer depletion, protection of biological diversity,

protection of international watercourses,

regulation on persistent organic pollutants.

There are also laws that are made by regional organisations,

like the European Union targeting the European environment.

Many laws come from global organisations,

others from regional bodies like the European Union.

But what kind of laws are they and what power do they have?

There are soft laws and there are hard laws.

Soft laws are mere political commitments; they are not binding.

Hard laws are binding: so, if a state ratifies a hard law

then you can actually file a case against the state.

soft laws, which are more like political commitments or aims,

You can be punished for breaking a hard law.

features in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In one article, where it says that states have to endeavour

to improve all aspects of industrial and environmental hygiene.

one covenant deals with the civil and political rights

and the other covenant deals with the economic, social and cultural rights.

They do not expressly talk about environmental rights,

but protection of environment is linked to enjoyment

of your civil, political, social and economic rights.

Similarly, the enjoyment of your social, political, economic

don't actually say very much about the environment.

without a safe environment, we couldn't enjoy our rights.

Are there any laws that give us a safe environment?

It was this year only, that in March 2021,

69 countries have agreed to work together

to ensure that there is an international law

that will recognise people's right to help the environment.

The work is about to begin. The major obstacle...

the major obstacles remain lack of political commitment.

Although there is an agreement to make a law

to recognise your right to help the environment,

the big problem is getting people to follow it.

We saw how, despite there not being much law

Is that enough to help in the real world?

In 2018, more than 35,000 people were forced to flee their homes

The Mekong River is the agricultural heartland of Vietnam

and home to 20% of the country's population.

But the Mekong river doesn't just flow through Vietnam.

So, to prevent people in Vietnam fleeing their homes,

Another river, another problem, and a fresh legal approach.

The Ganges in India: viewed as holy by millions of people,

To protect it, the river was, for 109 days,

declared a legal person by a court in the state of Uttarakhand.

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How and why is the environment protected? - BBC Learning English

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