In 2022, the United Nations General Assembly formally recognized the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. While this builds on the long-established right to health, it also broadens the scope of protection. Professor Hiroaki Matsuura will discuss his research on the distinct roles that the rights to health and to a healthy environment play in shaping population health outcomes across Latin American countries, where these rights have been recognized through national constitutions and the San Salvador Protocol. Although both aim to promote health and well-being, his analysis found that constitutional recognition of the right to health was associated with a measurable decline in infant mortality among poor families—highlighting its potential for immediate, targeted benefits to vulnerable populations. By contrast, the constitutional right to a healthy environment was not linked to short-term improvements in infant survival but correlated with a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, pointing to a longer-term, systemic contribution to public health. These findings suggest a division of labor between the two rights: the right to health primarily protects current generations, especially the poor, while the right to a healthy environment helps lay the foundation for healthier lives in the future. Both are essential, but they function through different pathways and over different time horizons—underscoring the importance of the term “sustainable” in the UN’s framing of this right.

Hiroaki Matsuura is currently Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Shoin University in Japan. He is also Professor in the Faculty of Tourism, Media and Cultural Studies. He has been a member of the World Health Organization's Technical Advisory Group on the Economics of Environment, Climate Change and Health, the Technical Advisory Group on Embedding Ethics in Health and Climate Change Policy, and the World Tourism Organization's World Committee on Tourism Ethics. Before joining Shoin University, he was Departmental Lecturer at the University of Oxford's School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Biodemography and Social Biology. He holds a Sc.D. in Global Health and Population from Harvard University. His research focuses on the role of human rights in population, health, and sustainability.

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