The Human Rights House Banjaluka joined the signature of the Call for the adoption of an additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights on the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The Call was signed by more than 170 organizations from Europe and the world, and was addressed to the ministers of foreign affairs and permanent representatives of the member states of the Council of Europe.
”The adverse impacts of the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss can be felt by all people living in the Member States of the Council of Europe. Across the continent, more than 300,000 people die prematurely every year due to atmospheric pollution. The accelerating climate crisis fuels unprecedented heatwaves, prolonged droughts, repeated floods, sea-level rise, and disastrous wildfires that ravage communities and ecosystems. As a result, younger generations now grow up with new forms of anxiety.
The scale of the harms for people living in Europe, and the importance of coming to a unified approach in interpreting and implementing the right to a clean and healthy environment the signatories of the Call ask the Council of Europe to urgently take decisive steps toward the adoption of a binding legal framework that recognizes and protects the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.
The adoption of an additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights would provide the most powerful and impactful human rights-based response to the environmental crisis, filling a gap in human rights protection, leading to clarifying policies required and fostering accountability that is vital for the protection of present and future generations. It would also equip governments on the continent with additional legal norms to defend their policies against encroachments and abusive judicial actions by corporate actors”, it is stated, among other things, in the Call.
Photo: Luis D. Alvarez, Pexels
