Until now international legal scholarship has turned its attention to deliberating the status of the right to a healthy environment in international law. However, the complicated nature of this cluster right (embracing the right to healthy soil, water, air, fauna and flora) has usually led to unsatisfactory conceptualization outcomes. It is argued that it is more plausible to scrutinize particular rights separately since they exhibit diff erent dynamics and only once they acquire international legal status (as the human right to water and sanitation), to (re)consider the cluster right. Consequently, this article will be devoted to the analysis of the human right to adequate air quality. In the first part, the article will debate whether this right can be considered as a universal human right based on the perusal of international law documents (both hard and soft law), customary international law (practice of states and opinio juris) as well as international justiciability of the right. Upon providing a negative response, the article will look into the argumentation of legal commentators, civic society and other organizations on whether international law should allow for the right to adequate air quality. Here, apart from arguments supporting the recognition of a new right, the problems of dignity, inherent content ambiguities, the anthropocentric character and the alleged redundancy of the right will be articulated. Finally, the article will lay out the prospects of the human right to the adequate air quality within international law, looking both at national and international developments