CHINA FACTS AND FIGURES
- Pollution has made cancer China's leading cause of death[A]
- 750,000 people a year die prematurely in China because of air and water pollution
- Pollution levels in Chinese cities cause 350,000 to 400,000 premature deaths annually
- (information excised from 2007 World Bank report at the behest of Chinese government officials)[B]
- 1 percent of China's 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union[C]
- 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China[D]
- Municipal and industrial dumping has left sections of many rivers "unfit for human contact"[E]
- 2 million die from cancer annually; in villages along the Huai river: "the local cancer rate was 1 in 100,000, now in some villages it's 1 in 100"[F]
HRWF Int'l (19.05.2008) / Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Today, no population suffers from pollution on a scale larger and with more devastating effects than the people of China. Currently, China's human rights record is being thoroughly examined with the approach of the Beijing Olympics on the horizon. However, even with such a strong commitment by human rights groups to challenge the Chinese government on several issues, pollution continues to exist outside of their agenda.
Environmental destruction always contains a human element. It is essential that we begin to associate pollution with human rights, to the extent that these issues become understood as wholly interwoven.
The former director of the United Nations Environment Program, Klaus Toepfer, stressed this point in a 2001 statement:
"It is time to recognize that those who pollute or destroy the natural environment are not just committing a crime against nature, but are violating human rights as well."
[1]
Within China, more than one-fifth of the world's population is suffering from grave abuses that threaten the core of their existence. The UN Millennium Project Report on Environmental Sustainability states that clean water and air are, "preconditions for human life."[2]
According to the report, pollutants[3] can cause "brain damage, respiratory illness, cancer, endocrine disorders, and even death." In fact, environmental risk factors account for up to one-fifth of the total weight of disease in developing countries.
Just as pollution is never an isolated event, but in fact a global problem, so too should pollution be understood as not only a threat to an individual's health, but a multi-dimensional violation of one's dignity, safety and psychological well-being.
According to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, "everyone has the right to live in a world free from toxic pollution and environmental degradation."[4] Despite this acknowledgement, human rights activists continue to tackle pollution in an indirect manner.
On the Amnesty International website, there is a spotlight on "Beijing Olympics," but in the list of priority issues, "pollution" remains absent. The same is true of Human Rights Watch: on their webpage, the word "pollution" does not appear under "China," nor the more general "global issues."[5] [6] [7] [8]
Instead, pollution is addressed by the human rights community through the angle of "business and human rights," in which business practices are questioned as they relate to human rights. Another avenue along which violations from pollution are approached, is through "health and human rights"; advocates look to the "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights," which in its third provision declares that states must recognize and realize progressively the "right to health."[9] In fact, a connection can be made between pollution and all basic human rights.
Human Rights Watch describes itself as an organization dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world, by exposing violations and "standing with victims and activists to bring offenders to justice."[10] This objective, shared by all organizations in the human rights arena, is being met in China in regards to the most frequent subject of public protest: disputes over land, such as forced evictions.[11] [12] Yet, the second most frequent subject, the rising levels of pollution, is an issue the Chinese people are engaged in without the direct support of international human rights organizations.
In 2005 there were 55,000 environmental protests reported, a 30% increase on the year before. That same year police killed at least three villagers in Dongzhou, Guangdong province, while quelling a riot over a planned power plant.[13]
On May 4 of this year, police severely beat seven demonstrators who were trying to shut down a factory in Zhejiang province; four activists were arrested for their roles in "inciting" the protest against industrial waste.[14]
The rising levels of pollution in China today are causing an humanitarian crisis that deserves the world's attention, framed in respect to human rights. As stated in the UN Millennium Declaration, we must "spare no effort to free all of humanity, from the threat of living on a planet irredeemably spoilt by human activities."[15]
The scale of the problem is daunting. Pan Yue, deputy minister of China's environmental regulator, SEPA,[16] estimates the annual cost of environmental damage at 8-13 percent of GDP—effectively canceling out China's annual economic growth rate.
Furthermore, Mr. Pan projects the levels of pollution in China to double over the next 15 years. These projections have tragic ramifications for the Chinese people of today and tomorrow. Urgent action by the global community is essential to reverse this trend.[17]
An individual's peace and security are held in the balance when we fail to recognize the toll pollution takes on human life; the peace and security of the planet requires sustainable development.
Connecting pollution and human rights provides a new tool in the global effort to demand sustainable development. It is also a key for individuals suffering from pollution in the name of "economic progress." No longer will victims of pollution need to remain in a state of cognitive dissonance—allowing others to promise that the next generation will have a better life, while their own lives are "necessarily" destroyed. Newly empowered individuals will be able to, in good conscience, recognize a violation when it occurs and demand that economic progress be made in a just manner, fully respecting their human rights—without exception.
Recognizing the human element of abuse caused by environmental destruction, also allows members of the activist community, traditionally considered part of distinct domains (such as those from "environmental" and human rights organizations), to work together, engaging from a stronger, more unified starting point in order to realize shared goals.
A multi-agency approach to pollution is an acknowledgement of the interdependent nature of the problem. The safety and well-being of human lives and ecosystems depend on the recognition of our deep interconnection and the inherent responsibilities that follow from this understanding.
[3] carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, particulates, sulfur dioxide, and ozone
[16] State Environmental Protection Administration
