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Right to Health and a Healthy Environment in India: The Situation of Health and Environment and the Core State Obligations towards it under Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

Lahari Chakraborty*

Health is an essential element of concern for every human being. Being healthy is crucial for having a good life as a person's interaction with society, the ability to work, and civil involvement depend on it. It is a massive topic of importance, and hence it has been given the legal entitlement through the right to health, which is present in several international and domestic legal frameworks. A primary reason for the deterioration of people's health is environmental factors and the conditions of the environment in which they live in. Human rights and environmental protection have often surfaced as essential topics on the human rights bodies' agenda. The United Nations, and human rights treaty bodies, recognizes the inherent connection between the environment and the fulfillment of a range of human rights, specifically the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ESCR). When considering the impact of environmental harm, a frequently addressed human right by the ESCR Committee is the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. This paper analyses the link between the right to health and the right to a healthy environment in India. India's healthcare infrastructure could be more robust, and health issues are massive and deserve more importance. Moreover, environmental conditions harm health due to multiple contributors, like pollution, rapid urbanization, deforestation, and industrialization. The effect of these contributors on public health is further aggravated due to widespread poverty and severe lack of public infrastructures, such as access to clean drinking water, sanitation, lack of healthcare, and emerging industrial pollution problems. The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) includes both the right to health and a healthy environment in Article 12. As a signatory to this covenant, India is bound by the obligations to respect, protect, and fulfil the rights to health and a healthy environment for its citizens. Focusing on the situation in India, the main question that this paper aims to answer is that considering that the environmental condition in India significantly contributes to poor health conditions for the people living in India, the question arises whether the state complies with its obligations. If not, where does it lack, and what can be done about it?