Everyone in Scotland deserves to live in a healthy environment. Nature depends on us to be able to use the law to defend it.
Through our advocacy work for policy and law reform, we are working for an enforceable right to a healthy environment to be fully implemented and realised in Scots law.
This involves working in the following areas:
- Human Rights (Scotland) Bill: we are advocating for an enforceable right to a healthy environment to be fully incorporated and defined to the highest possible standards as part of new human rights law in Scotland.
- Reform of legal expenses: we are calling for legal expenses to be reduced so that it is affordable for all of us to uphold environmental laws in a court or tribunal. This is a requirement of the international environmental law known as the Aarhus Convention and Scotland is in breach of this requirement.
- Creation of a dedicated Scottish Environment Court: we believe that Scotland should create a specialist environmental court or tribunal which is affordable and accessible for everyone, fair, timely and effective.
- Equal rights of appeal in the planning system: we believe that planning appeal rights in Scotland are not fair and therefore in breach of the Aarhus Convention. This is because developers are able to appeal refusals of planning decisions at low or no cost, but the public do not have the right to appeal poor planning decisions at low cost.
Our Advocacy Manifesto
Read our Advocacy Manifesto – An enforceable human right to a healthy environment to find out more. Or you can just read our one-page Summary of Recommendations.
The Petition
From 2021-2023 we ran a petition, which was signed by over 1500 individuals and 66 organisations including environmental groups, charities, thinktanks, and trade unions. A final copy was submitted to the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition for Human Rights Day (10th Dec 2023).
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.”
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George is backing the petition
“The law and court procedures in Scotland are complex and intimidating.”
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Ann is backing the petition
“We have no voice. We have no rights. We cannot protect ourselves. it’s impossible to get justice.”
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Organisations supporting this petition
