An enforceable human right to a healthy environment

Call to action

Everyone in Scotland deserves to live in a healthy environment.

To achieve this, we must be able to hold public bodies and polluters to account.

But in Scotland it is incredibly difficult to use our legal system to stand up for our health and our planet. It is complicated, expensive and intimidating.

The Scottish Government wants to include the human right to a healthy environment in law. The task now is to make sure the right is enforceable, so that public bodies and polluters respect it and we can take them to court if they do not.

Now is the time to act.

The Petition

We call on the Scottish Government to

1. Ensure our right to a healthy environment is enforceable in a court of law against public bodies and polluters, with effective remedies

2. Ensure our right to a healthy environment guarantees the highest standards for clean air, a safe climate, access to safe water and adequate sanitation, healthy and sustainably produced food, non-toxic environments in which to live, work, study and play, and healthy biodiversity and ecosystems

3. Reform legal expenses so that it is affordable for all of us to uphold environmental laws in a court or tribunal

4. Create a specialist environmental court which is affordable and accessible for everyone, fair, timely and effective

Support for the petition

UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment is backing the petition

Naomi McAuliffe, Scotland Programme Director, Amnesty International is backing the petition

“Scotland has the opportunity to be a world leader.”

George is backing the petition

“The law and court procedures in Scotland are complex and intimidating.”

Ann is backing the petition

“We have no voice. We have no rights. We cannot protect ourselves. it’s impossible to get justice.”

What next

This petition is now closed. We will submit the final document to Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition on Human Rights Day (10th Dec 2023)