A/HRC/RES/58/16
United Nations
General Assembly
Distr.: General
4 April 2025
Original: English
Human Rights Council
Fifty-eighth session
24 February–4 April 2025
Agenda item 3
Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to development
Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council
on 3 April 2025
58/16.
The human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment: the
ocean and human rights
The Human Rights Council,
Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
Reaffirming the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Vienna Declaration
and Programme of Action, and recalling the Declaration of the United Nations Conference
on the Human Environment, the Declaration on the Right to Development, the Rio
Declaration on Environment and Development, the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Convention
on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, relevant
international human rights treaties and other relevant regional human rights instruments,
Reaffirming also that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and
interrelated,
Recalling all its resolutions and decisions relating to human rights and the
environment, the most recent of which are resolutions 45/17 of 6 October 2020, 45/30 of 7
October 2020, 46/7 of 23 March 2021, 52/23 of 4 April 2023, 54/10 of 11 October 2023, 55/2
of 3 April 2024 and 57/28 of 11 October 2024 and decision 56/117 of 11 July 2024, and
relevant resolutions of the General Assembly,
Welcoming Human Rights Council resolution 48/13 of 8 October 2021 and General
Assembly resolution 76/300 of 28 July 2022, recognizing the human right to a clean, healthy
and sustainable environment,
Recognizing that the ocean is one single interconnected body of water that unites,
sustains and connects and is essential for the survival and well-being of ecosystems, people
and communities,
Taking note of General Assembly resolution 79/144 of 12 December 2024, in which
the Assembly recalled that States had committed themselves to protect and restore the health,
productivity and resilience of the ocean and marine ecosystems, to maintain their
biodiversity, enabling their conservation and sustainable use for present and future
generations, and to effectively apply an ecosystem approach and the precautionary approach
in the management, in accordance with international law, of activities having an impact on
the marine environment, to deliver on all three dimensions of sustainable development,
GE.25-05442 (E)