Human Rights and the Environment in Prisons: A Case Study of Persons Deprived of Liberty in Porto Alegre Central Prison, Brazil, Before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Abstract

Human rights and the Environment are in the process of an ongoing approximation that started in the 1972 Stockholm Declaration and had its heyday in 2018 when the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognized an autonomous right to a healthy environment under the American Convention. The interdependence of both regimes shapes legal effects either of the civil and political rights or economic and social rights. Yet the ongoing approximation between the regime over the years, environmental rights are still neglected in prisons, even when hazards to the environment create poor conditions of detention, affecting life, health, dignity, and welfare of the inmates. This thesis will address the topic of human rights and the environment in prisons, studying the case Persons Deprived of Liberty in Porto Alegre Central Prison, Brazil, before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The study will focus on the differences of natures between human rights and environmental rights and their effects on the use of the machinery of the Inter-American system of protection of human rights. The objective of this study is to propose a new interpretation of the international human rights documents in the Inter-American system based on the approximation of both regimes and to bring new perspectives to the issues of justiciability and enforceability of the environmental rights in prisons in the regional system.