Artificial intelligence expansion and the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment: A comparative regional analysis

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI, is rapidly transforming global economies and societies while raising significant concerns about its environmental impact on the realisation of the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. This article examines the tension between AI’s transformative potential and its substantial environmental costs, including energy consumption, water usage, and electronic waste generation. Through legal analysis and desk research, this study maps AI-related environmental harms against the human right to a healthy environment, as recognised by the UN General Assembly in 2022 and elaborated in the work of the UN Special Rapporteurs on the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment and on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, and surveys regulatory and policy approaches to these harms across four regions, with sustained doctrinal analysis of the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act. Ultimately, it argues that addressing AI’s environmental footprint requires moving beyond voluntary corporate commitments toward binding international standards that recognise environmental protection as integral to responsible AI development. Reconciling AI innovation with environmental rights demands that States, international organisations, and technology companies prioritise human rights obligations, ensuring AI development serves rather than undermines global sustainability for present and future generations.