Senior judges, experts and representatives of the international community met, in Strasbourg on Wednesday 3 May at an international conference organised by the Council of Europe, to discuss the possible legal form of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in Europe.
At the opening ceremony, Katrin Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland and representative of the country holding the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, recalled that strengthening the environmental component of the human rights system has been one of the priorities of the Icelandic Chairmanship.
The Council of Europe Summit in Reykjavik on 16-17 May will be an important opportunity to make progress in this direction, she added.
Marija Pejčinović Burić, Secretary General of the Organisation, recalled that the European Court of Human Rights had already rendered decisions in approximately 300 cases related to the environment and that three landmark cases were currently being examined by the Grand Chamber.
Hearings have already been held for two of them, the third will be held in the autumn and the judgments will follow, perhaps as early as the end of the year.
The Council of Europe is “carefully” examining “the feasibility and potential of new instruments” whose “quality is of vital importance”, she concluded, underlining the importance of the Conference’s work.
Basically, the question is whether the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment would be better protected by an autonomous Convention or by an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights or the European Social Charter.
Work is already underway in this area.
It has been called for by the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly.
Link to the Council of Europe’s “Human Rights and Environment” page: https://aeur.eu/f/6pc (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)