Terre des Hommes is proud to support a campaign for an additional protocol recognising the right to a healthy environment at the Council of Europe.

Over 450 civil society, social movements, and Indigenous Peoples organisations, including Terre des Hommes, earlier this year joined forces to call on the Council of Europe to explicitly recognise the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment in the European human rights framework.

We now encourage academics, scholars and researchers to join their voices with ours and sign a letter urging permanent representatives of the member states of the Council of Europe to act.

The explicit protection of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is especially crucial for those who face the greatest risk of environmental harm, such as children, young people, women, Indigenous Peoples, national minorities, individuals living in poverty, persons living with disabilities, older persons, refugees and migrants, displaced people, and other disproportionately impacted groups.

As the letter concludes:

Faced with unprecedented crises, the time is now for the Council of Europe to fulfil and reaffirm its mandate to promote democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in all member states by recognizing and protecting the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment through the adoption of a Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Read the full letter in English, French, German and Spanish.

Endorse the letter here.

Share it with academic colleagues in Europe!