Print
See related documents
Recommendation 1614 (2003)
Environment and human rights
1. The Parliamentary Assembly is convinced
of the importance of a healthy, viable and decent environment. It
has always endeavoured to promote environmental protection and to
defend the role of the Council of Europe, responsible, inter alia,
for drawing up the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife
and Natural Habitats (ETS No. 104, Bern 1979), the Convention on
Civil Liability for Damage Resulting from Activities Dangerous to
the Environment (ETS No. 150, Lugano 1993) and the Convention on
the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law (ETS No.
172, Strasbourg 1998).
2. It draws special attention to its Recommendation 1431 (1999) on future
action to be taken by the Council of Europe in the field of environment
protection, which already proposed linking this subject to the European Convention
on Human Rights (ETS No. 5) by supplementing it with an environmental
component.
3. The Assembly believes that in view of developments in international
law on both the environment and human rights as well as in European
case-law, especially that of the European Court of Human Rights,
the time has now come to consider legal ways in which the human
rights protection system can contribute to the protection of the
environment.
4. It also believes that the Council of Europe, which has always
been at the forefront in recognising and protecting human rights,
should play a pioneering role in this field, too, and set an example
by recognising appropriate legal procedural safeguards against arbitrary
environmental degradation.
5. In this context the Assembly refers to Principle 1 of the
Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment (1972): “Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality
and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality
that permits a life of dignity and well-being”.
6. The Assembly also refers to Article 1 of the United Nations
Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision
Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus, 1998):
“In order to contribute to the protection of the right of every
person of present and future generations to live in an environment
adequate to his or her health and well-being, each Party shall guarantee
the rights of access to information, public participation in decision
making, and access to justice in environmental matters”. Article
9 of the Aarhus Convention stipulates that this right of access
to justice is intended to provide a legal review procedure to persons
receiving unsatisfactory responses from the public authorities to
requests for environmental information.
7. The Assembly also notes that many European countries have
added the principle of environmental protection to their constitution,
thus expressing their desire to give greater legal recognition to
environmental rights.
8. Finally, the Assembly refers to the case-law of the European
Court of Human Rights concerning states’ positive obligations in
the area of protection against environmental nuisances which are
harmful or dangerous to health. It wishes to encourage this process
by adding provisions concerning the recognition of individual procedural
rights, intended to enhance environmental protection, to the rights
set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.
9. The Assembly recommends that the governments of member states:
9.1. ensure appropriate protection
of the life, health, family and private life, physical integrity
and private property of persons in accordance with Articles 2, 3
and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and by Article
1 of its Additional Protocol, by also taking particular account
of the need for environmental protection;
9.2. recognise a human right to a healthy, viable and decent
environment which includes the objective obligation for states to
protect the environment, in national laws, preferably at constitutional
level;
9.3. safeguard the individual procedural rights to access to
information, public participation in decision making and access
to justice in environmental matters set out in the Aarhus Convention;
9.4. harmonise their legislation on environmental protection
and safety.
10. The Assembly recommends that the Committee of Ministers:
10.1. draw up an additional protocol
to the European Convention on Human Rights concerning the recognition
of individual procedural rights intended to enhance environmental
protection, as set out in the Aarhus Convention;
10.2. draw up, as an interim measure in preparation for the
drafting of an additional protocol, a recommendation to member states
setting out the ways in which the European Convention on Human Rights
provides individual protection against environmental degradation,
proposing the adoption at national level of an individual right
to participation in environmental decision making, and indicating
a preference, in cases concerning the environment, for a broad interpretation
of the right to an effective remedy guaranteed under Article 13;
10.3. provide for Parliamentary Assembly representation in the
group of experts or on the intergovernmental committee entrusted
by the Committee of Ministers with responsibility for drafting these
texts.