The general theme chosen for consideration in the 1990 Banff Conference is a particularly suitable and most timely one: Human Rights in the XXI Century: A Global Challenge. Not only does it render possible to encompass the examination of a wide variety of aspects and concerns pertaining to the present state of the international protection of human rights, but it also paves the way for a projection into the future of insights and ideas which may point the ways towards the enhancement of the international protection of human rights in the years that bring us into the new century. Within this general outlook, the topic which has been entrusted to us for presentation in the present Conference in Banff is a specific and so far virtually unexplored one: the parallelisms in the_ evolutions of two domains of protection -human rights protection and environmental protection- and the impact of their expansion upon the exercise of previously recognized human rights.