Universality Through Subsidiarity? A Comparative Analysis of the Right to a Healthy Environment in the Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

In the context of a global ecological crisis, there is an increasing tendency by actors to recast environmental concerns as legal issues within the framework of international human rights. This article addresses how differences in interpretation and enforcement of the right to a healthy or satisfactory environment, as reflected in the jurisprudence of the IACtHR and the ACmHPR, illustrate the universality of international human rights through the principle of subsidiarity. This article advances that subsidiarity is crucial in reconciling the universality of human rights, self-determination, and pluralism in the international system. It ultimately concludes that the analysis of the right to a healthy environment in the Inter-American and African systems demonstrates that the achievement of universality does not entail uniformity, but rather, subsidiarity ensures the recognition of contextual particularities across diverse systems, not only strengthening their legitimacy but also guaranteeing the genuine universality of human rights.