Human Rights As a Protection Mechanism for the Environment

Abstract

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, on November 15th of 2017, issued an Advisory Opinion on the environment and human rights. The relevance of this Opinion is reflected in the development made by the Court on state obligations in relation to the environment. The Court recognized the “undeniable relationship between the protection of the environment and the realization of other human rights.” In this virtue, this article seeks to scrutinize and synthesize the foundations of the Advisory Opinion. Finally, since advisory opinions are not binding nor obligatory for Ecuador (or any other state), this article develops an analysis on one possible solution (conventionality control) for the inclusion of the Advisory Opinion 23/17 in the Ecuadorian legal system.