UN Expert Says Toxic Pollution Still Threatens Human Rights

A United Nations expert told the General Assembly on Thursday that toxic pollution remains a profound human rights crisis, three decades after the mandate on toxics was created. Bethanie Carney Almroth, the Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights, presented a report from her predecessor that reviews the mandate and sets out priorities for the years ahead.

According to the United Nations human rights office, the report finds that toxic pollution interferes with a wide range of rights. Those rights include life, health, food, water, safe and healthy working conditions, access to information, participation in decisions that affect communities, and effective remedy when harm occurs.

The report assesses progress made under the mandate, problems that persist, and priorities for the future. It presents toxic pollution as a problem that builds across the full life cycle of hazardous substances, from production through use to disposal, which is why controls that cover only a single stage leave gaps that exposure can pass through.

Access to information and participation matter in that picture because they decide whether people living near a source of exposure can learn what they face and take part in decisions about it. The report lists both among the rights affected by toxic pollution, alongside the rights to life, health, food, and water, which gives communities a direct stake in how rules are written and enforced.

A burden that keeps growing

Carney Almroth said the world faces an accelerating toxic burden. She pointed to rapid growth in chemical production, consumption patterns that cannot be sustained, and inadequate controls over hazardous substances throughout their life cycles. The report says those pressures have built up over time rather than appearing suddenly.

The effects of toxic pollution reach every region, but the report says they fall hardest on people who contributed least to the problem. Children, workers, Indigenous Peoples, women and girls, people living in poverty, and communities located near pollution hotspots continue to carry the heaviest burdens of exposure.

Harm from toxic pollution does not end when a facility closes or a project or conflict ends, the expert said. Contamination can remain embedded in ecosystems, in livelihoods, and in human health for generations, long after the activity that caused it has stopped.

Related GenZ NewZ coverage has examined how polluted air reaches people in daily life, including peat fires that filled skies across Southeast Asia with smoke and a review linking air pollution with eye disease. Both stories show how exposure spreads beyond the place where it starts.

Prevention instead of cleanup

The report calls for a shift from managing toxic pollution to preventing it. It says states should strengthen legal protections, progressively eliminate the most hazardous substances, apply the precautionary principle, improve corporate accountability, and guarantee effective remedies for victims of toxic exposure.

Businesses also carry a responsibility in the report. Companies should respect human rights throughout their operations and supply chains, rather than treating harm as a cost that appears only after damage is done.

Achieving an environment free from toxic harm will require stronger international cooperation, science-based policymaking, meaningful participation by affected communities, and a renewed commitment to accountability at every level, Carney Almroth said.

Remedies for victims sit at the centre of those recommendations. The report says people harmed by toxic pollution should have an effective route to remedy, and that accountability should run through governments and companies alike, with legal protections strong enough to be enforced rather than stated as an aspiration.

Prevention also changes the timeline for action. Waiting until harm is documented means exposure has already happened, while controls applied earlier in the life cycle of a hazardous substance can keep it from reaching workers, children, and nearby communities at all. That reasoning runs through the report, and it explains why the expert framed prevention as a shift in approach rather than an addition to existing cleanup work.

A non-toxic future

The expert said the next chapter of the mandate should advance a vision of a future free from toxic harm, grounded in human dignity, environmental justice, and fairness between generations. That vision, she said, depends on decisions taken now about which substances are allowed and how exposure is controlled.

Carney Almroth called for a renewed global commitment to building that future. The report frames toxic pollution as a human rights issue in its own right, and the full statement is available from the United Nations human rights office.