A/HRC/RES/45/30
2.
Urges States to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of the child, without
discrimination of any kind, including in efforts to implement their obligations and
commitments under multilateral environmental instruments and agreements, and to achieve
the Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;
3.
Acknowledges the vital importance of ensuring that every child of present and
future generations can enjoy an environment adequate to their health and well-being, and that
preventing environmental harm is the most effective way to fully protect children from its
effects;
4.
Urges States to take the necessary measures to ensure the full enjoyment by
children of all their human rights and fundamental freedoms, and to protect them from the
effects of environmental harm through effective regulation and enforcement mechanisms,
including by:
(a)
Ensuring that the best interest of the child is a primary consideration in
environmental decision-making by adopting a child rights-based approach and by
recognizing the critical importance of child rights impact assessments of relevant laws,
standards and policies to evaluate their actual impact on the rights of the child;
(b)
Committing to take precautionary action whenever there are threats of serious
or irreversible damage to children from the effects of environmental harm, while noting that
a lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-efficient
measures to prevent such threats;
(c)
Considering recognizing a right to a healthy environment in national
legislation in order to promote justiciability, strengthen accountability and facilitate greater
participation, improving environmental protection and performance and ensuring rights for
present and future generations;
(d)
Enhancing cross-sectoral cooperation and strengthening regulatory agencies
and ministries responsible for overseeing standards relevant to the rights of the child
implicated by exposure to pollution, hazardous substances and wastes, climate change and
the loss of biodiversity with a view to ensuring that sufficient monitoring of laws, policies
and implementation mechanisms are in place to protect children from the effects of such
environmental harm;
(e)
Strengthening efforts to monitor childhood exposure by collecting information
on the impact of environmental harm on children, in particular exposure to hazardous
substances, wastes and pollution, and ensuring that child-rights impact assessments take into
account the ways in which environmental harm affects girls and boys differently, making
such information publicly available and accessible while ensuring it is available also in ageresponsive language and formats;
(f)
Taking immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour and to
secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including hazardous
child labour, and putting an end to child labour in all its forms, inter alia through the
enforcement of the fundamental principles and rights at work and by eliminating work by
children where they are exposed to hazardous substances and wastes, while ensuring that
children who have been subjected to such exposure have access to the necessary treatment
and compensation;
(g)
Integrating gender-responsive measures into their laws, policies and
programmes relevant to the protection of children from the effects of environmental harm,
including by addressing sexual and gender-based violence risks;
5.
Also urges States to ensure the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health, without discrimination of any kind,
including sexual and reproductive health, throughout their life course, by inter alia:
(a)
Ensuring the availability, quality, accessibility and acceptability of health
information and goods, and of health-care services;
(b)
Taking measures to ensure that the underlying determinants of health, such as
food, water and housing, are free from hazardous substances;
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