Recently, Interest in environmental rights has increased in the face of serious global climate change. This study presents the concept of ‘Environmental rights as human rights’ by focusing on discourse that emphasizes a transformative attitude toward the relationship between nature and humans. Third-generation human rights have been understood as a new category of human rights. However, environmental rights, as third-generation human rights, emphasize collective concepts such as community or people. Thus, solidarity can be very useful in addressing contemporary environmental pollution and economic and social inequality. By analyzing the Human Rights Canon since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it becomes clear that the concept of environmental rights demonstrates the essence of universality, indivisibility, and interdependence of human rights.
For example, residents of villages near the Daesan Petrochemical Complex in Seosan, Chungcheongnam-do, who have suffered from environmental pollution caused by petrochemical plants for decades. They have been violated various rights such as ‘rights related to resource use considering the protection of the earth and the community of life, rights related to sustainable development considering environmental protection and equality, rights related to receiving education and access to information on the environment and human rights, rights related to legal remedies and compensation for environmental disasters, rights related to developing in a healthy ecological environment, and rights related to participating in decision-making and resisting environmental pollution, rights related to sustainable development considering environmental protection and equality, rights related to receiving education and access to information on the environment and human rights, rights related to legal remedies and compensation for environmental disasters, rights related to developing in a healthy ecological environment, and rights related to participating in decision-making and resisting environmental pollution’. Sometimes, they have faced new phases of rights improvement. In this situation, a human rights-based approach to environmental issues was demanded strongly. The concept of environmental rights was very useful in explaining their situation and asking for responsibility. The environmental rights as human rights presented in this study can help promote fundamental solutions to environmental problems from a human rights perspective.