Over sixty organisations have written to UK government ministers ahead of a major meeting of the Council of Europe, urging them to back proposals for an additional binding Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that would finally recognise the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.
An Additional Protocol would strengthen the rights of all 675 million citizens living in Council of Europe member states. Recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment would harmonise standards in the region, provide legal certainty, strengthen domestic environmental legislation, protect vulnerable communities, and support environmental defenders. It would also reaffirm the European Court of Human Rights’ legitimacy in addressing matters related to environmental rights, allowing it to build on its significant and growing environmental jurisprudence, and improving the protection of lives and livelihoods for current and future generations.
The letter, coordinated by organisations including Friends of the Earth, Wildlife & Countryside Link, and the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS), follows an intervention from UN appointed experts on human rights and the environment, who added their voice to the growing calls for an Additional Protocol recognising the right.
On 13 May, the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers’ Drafting Group on Human Rights and the Environment will decide whether to move forward in drafting an Additional Protocol recognising the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in the ECHR. The move is backed by countries including Portugal, Slovenia, Iceland, Georgia, and France, but the UK has yet to make its position clear.
The Council of Europe remains the only regional human rights system in the world that has not yet recognised this right. Though 42 of the 46 member states acknowledge it nationally or regionally, legal protection remains inconsistent across borders. This is despite the unanimous support expressed by Council of Europe Member States for the UN General Assembly’s 2022 resolution recognising the right to a healthy environment as a human right – and the collective commitment to strengthen the Council’s work on the human rights dimensions of environmental protection, reaffirmed at the 2023 Reykjavík Summit.
Shivali Fifield, Chief Officer at the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS), said:
‘We face the triple planetary crisis of climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the widespread pollution of our air, land and water. Environmental damage and human suffering are two sides of the same coin and Europe should guarantee legal protections for communities exposed to environmental harm if we are to address the root causes and intersections of social, environmental and climate injustice. We urge the UK government to demonstrate their commitment to upholding our human and environmental rights by voting to recognise our universal human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.’
Kierra Box, trade and environmental regulation campaigner at Friends of the Earth England, Wales & Northern Ireland, said:
‘One look at the state of our sewage-filled rivers and seas will tell you just how critical a healthy environment is, not to mention the level of public outrage it’s caused. Yet companies who pollute with impunity, coupled with rising global temperatures, are threatening nature, undermining our human rights and putting people at risk. This is a chance for UK ministers to take a stand. Clean air, safe water and thriving wildlife are not luxuries, they are a human right and deserve legal recognition as such.’
Niall Watson, Senior Policy Officer at Wildlife & Countryside Link, said:
‘Environmental inequality remains a major issue in the UK with millions of people living shorter, unhealthier lives because they are breathing polluted air, or don’t have access to greenspace which supports physical and mental health. Putting the right to a healthy environment in law would give local communities that are suffering from polluted air and rivers or losing access to local nature a greater ability to hold our leaders to account.
The UK Government must raise the bar for nature and our communities. Now is the time for the Government to stop paying lip service to what is needed and give its backing to Europe-wide recognition of the peoples’ right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.’
ENDS
For more information contact
Benji Brown, Policy & Advocacy Officer
Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland
bbrown@ercs.scot, 07856 407479
NOTES TO EDITORS
[1] The letter to UK Government Ministers and to the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe has been signed by 64 civil society organisations from across the UK. It can be viewed along with a full list of signatories at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HPdgybXzWBCwbCnCg4-XjSiz19hpufJh
[2] The Council of Europe, which aims to ‘to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law across Europe and beyond‘, oversees the European Convention on Human Rights. The Committee of Ministers is the Council of Europe’s decision-making body. It is composed of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the 46 member States of the Council of Europe or their Permanent Representatives in Strasbourg. https://www.coe.int/en/web/portal
[3] At the 2023 Reykjavík Summit, the Council of Europe committed to ‘strengthening our work… on the human rights aspects of the environment based on the political recognition of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right, in line with United Nations General Assembly Resolution 76/300 “The human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment“, and by pursuing the implementation of Committee of Ministers Recommendation CM/Rec(2022)20 on human rights and the protection of the environment’. https://rm.coe.int/4th-summit-of-heads-of-state-and-government-of-the-council-of-europe/1680ab40c1#page=20
[4] A joint statement was issued in support of the additional protocol in May 2025 by UN Special Rapporteurs on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, and the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/05/council-europe-must-recognise-right-healthy-environment-un-experts-urge
[5] The letter to UK Government Ministers, coordinated by Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, and Wildlife & Countryside Link, is part of a broader campaign calling for the legal protection of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in Europe, supported by over 500 civil society organisations, Indigenous Peoples, and youth movements, and more than 200 scholars from across Europe and beyond. Further details available at: https://healthyenvironmenteurope.com/
[6] The UK does not currently recognise the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in domestic law. The Scottish Government previously announced its intention to incorporate the right to a healthy environment into Scots law as part of the Human Rights (Scotland) Bill, but this legislation was excluded from the 2024-5 and 2025-6 Programmes for Government.
[7] Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland (EWNI) is the UK’s largest grassroots network. We’re part of a global environmental justice community dedicated to the protection of the natural world and the wellbeing of everyone in it. We bring together more than two million people in 70 countries, combining people power all over the world to transform local actions into global impact. https://friendsoftheearth.uk/
[8] The Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS) assist the public and civil society to understand and exercise their rights in environmental law and to protect the environment. We carry out advocacy in policy and law reform to improve environmental rights, and full compliance with the Aarhus Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making, and access to justice on environmental matters. https://www.ercs.scot
[9] Wildlife & Countryside Link is the largest environment and wildlife coalition in England, bringing together 89 organisations for the protection of nature. Our members campaign to conserve UK wildlife, plants, habitats, rivers and seas and improve access to and enjoyment of our natural spaces. Together our members have the support of over eight million people in the UK and directly protect over 750,000 hectares of land and 800 miles of coastline. https://www.wcl.org.uk/
