Linkages between human rights and environmental management of natural resources, meanwhile, have become clearer in recent years. Environmental degradation is often worse in countries and in areas where human rights abuses are rampant. Rights of association, access to information, freedom of expression, and other related issues, however, are critical for the success and durability of environmental and human rights movements. As the linkage between environmental and human rights concerns becomes more apparent, it is increasingly difficult to differentiate between environmental injustices and human rights abuses.

Environmental injustice occurs in various ways and places. Human rights and environmental abuses are often perpetrated in the name of development, as past experience with projects of multilateral institutions like the World Bank demonstrate. Poor and rural peoples in developing nations can be further marginalized by projects such as large dams or oil pipelines that claim to reduce poverty, but instead displace local inhabitants and exploit their natural resource base. These extensive projects often bring destructive effects to the biodiversity of the area, affecting wildlife, fisheries, and forests, including ecosystems and habitats that support essential living resources.

Many activities of private corporations also foster human rights violations and environmental degradation. For instance, some corporations involuntarily displace local peoples from their ancestral domains, fail to implement pollution control measures, suppress (or worse) local activists who question the impacts of corporate activities, or produce and export chemicals they know will cause serious health problems.

CIEL recognizes the growing connection between threats to the global environment and basic human rights. CIEL believes that every human being - by virtue of being human - has the right to live in a healthy environment and to participate in decisions that directly impact his or her life and livelihood. Seeking to identify and develop connections between international environmental law and human rights law, to integrate the theoretical and advocacy approaches of the two movements, and to promote a more just, equitable and sustainable approach to natural resource management issues, CIEL started a Human Rights and Environment (HRE) Program in 1998.

The Human Rights and Environment Program has the following goals:

• To reduce specific human rights and environmental abuses on the ground.
• To strengthen the human rights and environment movement through training, skill sharing, developing HRE advocacy guidelines and building strategic alliances.
• To build the conceptual framework for using human rights in protecting the environment. This includes furthering the development of substantive human rights and sustainable development norms, and to strengthen the procedural and institutional framework for promoting HRE.
  

To meet these goals, we utilize the following strategies:

• Bring human rights and environment cases to regional human rights courts and provide legal and technical support for human rights and environment advocates in cases that have high potential for both helping local communities and developing the law in this area. We particularly focus on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, but we engage other forums as well.
• Develop and test new mechanisms for highlighting and addressing the human rights and environment linkage. CIEL has been a leader in strengthening the human rights and environment policy framework at international economic institutions, such as the World Bank and other International Financial Institutions. The World Trade Organization and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes are other forums in which we have worked to strengthen the human rights and environment linkage in relation to economic activities.
• Develop and strengthen legal capacities for promoting environmental justice, especially in the Global South and in international law, including support for effective human rights and environment institutions and advocates at local community levels.
• Provide urgent response to important human rights and environment cases that arise. CIEL is frequently approached by NGOs from around the world that need our legal and policy expertise on human rights and environment issues.