Right to a healthy environment
Without a healthy environment, humanity cannot survive or thrive.
We need an enforceable right to a healthy environment in Scots law.
What is the human right to a healthy environment?
In July 2022, the United Nations General Assembly declared access to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a universal human right, recognising that environmental damage has negative implications for the effective enjoyment of all human rights, for present and future generations.
Learn more: What is the Right to a Healthy Environment?
The right to a healthy environment has substantive and procedural parts:
Substantive rights
The six substantive features are: 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. To make a real difference, our substantive environmental rights must have ‘teeth’: they must be clear, robust, and enforceable to the highest standards.
Procedural rights
The procedural part specifies the processes and mechanisms for people to exercise their environmental rights and ensure environmental laws are enforced. The three rights of access to information, public participation in decision-making, and access to justice are enshrined by the UNECE Aarhus Convention.
Human Rights (Scotland) Bill
The Scottish Government published proposals for a new Scottish Human Rights Bill in June 2023. The proposals aimed to protect a range of rights, including the human right to a healthy environment ‘with substantive and procedural elements’.
To the dismay of human rights organisations, the proposed Bill was dropped from the Scottish Government’s 2024-25 legislative programme, but was included in the SNP manifesto at 2026 parliamentary elections and is due to be re-introduced in the new parliamentary session.
What is happening now?
ERCS continues to work to ensure the right to a healthy environment is prioritised and was previously a member of the Human Rights Oversight Board and Capability Building Working Group to support the development of a new Human Rights Bill.
We are now calling on the Scottish Government to prioritise the Human Rights Bill, including a human right to a healthy environment, in its next Programme for Government.
At a UK level, we endorse calls for a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act, and internationally, we are campaigning for the Council of Europe to incorporate an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights recognising the right to a healthy environment.
Global progress towards the realisation of environmental rights
ERCS’s work continues to be informed by global best practice and emerging legal developments across the world. For further information, see:
- OHCHR (Sept 2025) General comment No. 27 on economic, social and cultural rights and the environmental dimension of sustainable development
- UNEP (2025) Right to a Healthy Environment in Practice: A Decade Before the Courts (2015-2025)
- Puentes Riaño (Aug 2024) Overview of the implementation of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment
- Boyd (April 2024) The Right to a Healthy Environment: A User’s Guide
Blogs & news
Scottish elections 2026: where do the parties stand on environmental rights?
With only a week to go before the next Scottish Parliament election, what commitments have each party made on environmental rights and access to justice? …
A healthy planet, a fair society: new UN guidance links human rights and the environment
A new General Comment published by the United Nations makes clear that ‘a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is an essential precondition for the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights.’ …
Advocacy Manifesto sets out route map to secure environmental rights
ERCS today launches our new Advocacy Manifesto, setting out a route map of how every person’s right to live in a healthy environment can be respected, protected, and fulfilled …
Landmark climate change ruling reaffirms States’ obligations to protect the right to a healthy environment
The International Court of Justice has issued a landmark Advisory Opinion on States’ obligations regarding climate change …
Everyone’s Environment: Recommendations for more inclusive environmental policy in Scotland
Last September, we were commissioned by NPC’s Everyone’s Environment project to co-produce recommendations for making environmental policy more inclusive. This blog shares the project’s resources …
Environmental and human rights groups urge UK government to back binding Council of Europe Protocol on the right to a healthy environment – press release
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 …
Resources
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