5th June, the date when the United Nations (UN) Environment Conference was held, which has been celebrated as “World Environment Day” since 1972 is an important tool for drawing attention to environmental problems and encouraging policy makers, public institutions, non-governmental organizations, all relevant stakeholders and individuals to take steps on the environment. For more than half a century since the declaration of World Environment Day, environmental problems have been brought to the agenda by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) every year, within the framework of a different theme. In 2024 with a slogan focusing on the solution, not the problem “Our land. Our future. We are #GenerationRestoration,”(1) theme was selected. With this theme, it is also seen that despite the global consensus on the identification of problems, their causes and effects, concrete steps must be taken towards the solution of environmental problems.(2)

Environment, which is the only living space for all living things, comes to the fore with the damage done to it day by day. It is an established fact that environmental problems affect human rights in multiple forms and dimensions. Environmental problems, especially problems such as environmental pollution and climate change, has serious negative impacts on people's fundamental rights and freedoms such as life, health, housing and property rights. With the provision “Man is both creature and moulder of his environment, which gives him physical sustenance and affords him the opportunity for intellectual, moral, social and spiritual growth” in its first Article, Stockholm Declaration constitutes a normative statement that access to clean air, clean water and healthy food are indispensable conditions for people to live a healthy life.

Right to a healthy environment is a category of rights enshrined in international human rights law and our national law. According to the Stockholm Declaration, “Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being.” In the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights the party states has the obligation “improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene [and] the prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases”" Looking at the Convention on the Rights of the Child, "Within the framework of fundamental health care services... To combat disease and malnutrition, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution," "To ensure that all segments of society, in particular parents and children, are informed, have access to education and are supported in the use of basic knowledge of [...] environmental sanitation [...]" are once again among the responsibilities of States Parties.

With the expression “everyone has the right to live in a healthy and balanced environment” in the Article 56 of the Constitution titled “Health services and protection of the environment," right to a healthy environment has been designated as a constitutional right. In the second paragraph of the same article, it has been stated that "it is the duty of the State and citizens to improve the natural environment, to protect the environmental health and to prevent environmental pollution."

Our Institution, main mission of which is to protect the right to equal treatment of persons on the basis of human dignity and prevention of discrimination in exercising the legally acknowledged rights and freedoms, celebrates June 5 World Environment Day, wishing for a world where all necessary steps are taken for a sustainable future and activities for the elimination of the devastating effects of environmental problems and climate change are strengthened.

Respectfully announced to the public.