This will be debated in an upcoming meeting of the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Steering Committee for Human Rights (CDDH) from 25 to 29 November 2024. Member states will be asked to express their position on the issue. Hundreds of Norwegian and European organisations advocate for such a binding treaty.
Norway should support (1) drafting an additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on the Right to a Healthy Environment and (2) the operationalisation of the Reykjavik Committee on Environment and Human Rights, composed of independent experts.
The triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and the increasing impact of environmental degradation on human rights has led to an increase in related cases at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). This trend is expected to continue. The ECtHR has already affirmed states’ obligations to protect existing human rights – such as the right to life (article 2 ECHR) and private and family life (article 8) – against environmental hazards, thereby creating a growing body of environmental human rights case law. An additional Protocol would consolidate the ECtHR’s jurisprudence and make it more coherent, contributing to greater legal certainty.
In addition, an “ECRI-style” Reykjavik Committee on Environment, composed of independent experts, would deliver essential policy guidance to member states on such critical matters. The Committee should begin integrating “the political recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right” made in Reykjavik into policy recommendations for member states.
Norway’s contribution can be decisive in galvanising wider support for effectively protecting the right to a healthy environment.
Read the Reykjavik Declaration