The Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development, meeting on 25 March in Paris, deplored the fact that the Council of Europe is now the only regional human rights system which has not yet formally recognised the right to a healthy environment.
It welcomed the fact that the 4th Council of Europe Summit in Reykjavik (16-17 May 2023) emphasised the urgency of protecting the environment and countering the impact of the “triple planetary crisis of pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss”.
The report by Simon Moutquin (Belgium, SOC), adopted by the committee, supports the setting up in January 2024 of an Intersecretariat Task Force on the Environment, responsible for carrying out a stocktaking survey of existing and planned activities, and “proposing elements for the development of a first Council of Europe strategy on the environment”.
The committee believes that this future strategy should have a clear goal in terms of setting standards at European level. It stressed the urgent need to formalise in law an autonomous right to a healthy environment at the Council of Europe, and recommended capitalising on existing Council of Europe standards.
In this context, the committee called on the member states to reflect at national level on the nature and content of the right to a healthy environment, so that this right is rapidly recognised in law as an autonomous human right. The adopted draft resolution also encourages the creation of specialised environmental teams in all branches of governance, as well as the introduction of citizen participation mechanisms at national level – such as citizens’ assemblies on climate – to promote social acceptance of environmental policies.
Finally, the committee recommended that the Committee of Ministers give priority to the setting up of an “ad hoc intergovernmental committee to organise, co-ordinate and run the implementation of the Strategy and action plan”, and to the drawing up of a “a binding legal instrument as soon as possible”.
