STELLAR [ongoing]

The concept of “climate rights” has been introduced by the DACE project to capture a variety of rights and legal mechanisms, i.e., existing and nascent types/classes of rights at international, EU and national level with relevance to climate change, defined as follows:

“all substantive and procedural rights in connection with climate change related matters”.

As an operational definition, its main purpose is to inform our study of climate rights as vehicles for just and engaging society in which climate justice and protection against the consequences of climate change are high on the agenda for the governments, businesses and the society as a whole. This is a broad and overarching definition which could come across political, social and civil society domains and can be used for engagement of key target groups of the project like climate activists, environmental associations, other interested citizens and local communities, but also bar associations, students, journalists. “Climate rights” in the sense of the DACE project thus does not only include rights in a narrow legal sense, such as human or social rights, but encompasses legal mechanisms that enable individuals and organisations to protect their rights, to demand climate action or hold governments and businesses accountable. Even if we don’t claim coining a new concept of the legal doctrine, we could still test its practical application, and stir a debate about it with national and EU stakeholders. While testing the application of the concept, we aim to raise the awareness of target groups and general public of climate rights (in general terms or about specific rights related to or affected by climate change: e.g., right to life, health, home, dignity); to test the readiness of target groups to exercise such climate rights already now, or to explore the existing practice of exercising such rights; and to mobilise target groups’ support for introducing a stronger and more comprehensive system of climate rights that could be also defined as rights to climate protection^[1].

[1] Kahl. 2022. A human right to climate protection – Necessary protection or human rights proliferation?

Human rights-based strategic climate litigation in Europe often invokes Article 2 and 8 of the ECHR, claiming that the (respective) government’s failure to take sufficient action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change constituted a breach of their rights to life and private/family life, as the impacts of climate change posed threats to their health, well-being, and living conditions. While the ECHR and the EU Charter are distinct legal instruments, they share common values and principles. For example, there is an overlap between the rights guaranteed by both the ECHR and the EU Charter.

 

1. Right to Life (ECHR Article 2; EU Charter Article 2): Both the ECHR and the EU Charter guarantee the right to life. ECHR Article 2 protects individuals from arbitrary deprivation of life and imposes positive obligations on states to protect individuals’ lives. Similarly, EU Charter Article 2 recognizes the right to life.
2. Right to Respect for Private and Family Life (ECHR Article 8; EU Charter Article 7): ECHR Article 8 protects the right to respect for private and family life, including the right to privacy, family life, home, and correspondence. Similarly, EU Charter Article 7 protects the right to respect for private and family life, home, and communications. Both provisions aim to safeguard individuals’ autonomy, personal relationships, and privacy from arbitrary interference by public authorities.
3. Non-Discrimination (ECHR Article 14; EU Charter Article 21): ECHR Article 14 ensures that the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination, and the EU Charter Article 21 prohibits any discrimination based on any ground.

 

When implementing project activities, we will have regard to Article 52.3 of the EU Charter[1]. Practically, it means that when construing a given right enshrined in the EU Charter, we will always consider its primary meaning as well as the meaning of that particular right in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR. Nevertheless, we will not be dealing with rights that are only included in the ECHR and not in the EU Charter.

 

Besides the clearly substantive human rights-based provisions of the EU Charter, there are other sections that have fundamental relevance to our project. Some of them are formulated as rights. These are the following:

Article 11 – Freedom of expression and information

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.

Article 41 – Right to good administration

1. Every person has the right to have his or her affairs handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time by the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union.
2. This right includes:

(a) the right of every person to be heard, before any individual measure which would affect him or her adversely is taken;

(b) the right of every person to have access to his or her file, while respecting the legitimate interests of confidentiality and of professional and business secrecy;

(c) the obligation of the administration to give reasons for its decisions.

Article 42 – Right of access to documents

Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, has a right of access to documents of the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union, whatever their medium.

Article 43 – European Ombudsman

Any citizen of the Union and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State has the right to refer to the European Ombudsman cases of maladministration in the activities of the institutions, bodies, offices or agencies of the Union, with the exception of the Court of Justice of the European Union acting in its judicial role.

Article 44 – Right to petition

Any citizen of the Union and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State has the right to petition the European Parliament.

These have relevance regarding access to environmental information and public participation in climate and energy policy making and decision-making.

Article 47 – Right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial

Everyone whose rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law of the Union are violated has the right to an effective remedy before a tribunal in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Article.

Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law. Everyone shall have the possibility of being advised, defended and represented.

Legal aid shall be made available to those who lack sufficient resources in so far as such aid is necessary to ensure effective access to justice.

This one is about access to justice, also in climate and energy matters.

Other provisions are not formulated as rights stricto sensu, however, will be able to serve as legal basis for enforcing public influence on climate and energy policy making and decision-making:

Article 37 – Environmental protection

A high level of environmental protection and the improvement of the quality of the environment must be integrated into the policies of the Union and ensured in accordance with the principle of sustainable development.

Ultimately, these are the provisions within the EU Charter that will be referenced by the project partners in implementing project activities.

[1] 3. In so far as this Charter contains rights which correspond to rights guaranteed by the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the meaning and scope of those rights shall be the same as those laid down by the said Convention. This provision shall not prevent Union law providing more extensive protection.

Eight environmental legal NGOs from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia joined forces under the umbrella organisation Justice and Environment to focus on climate and energy policy making and decision-making and on how to apply Charter rights in order to make sure the public has a seat at the table in these procedures.

The baseline is the respect for the values and rights enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, especially its Art. 37 that aims at integrating a high level of environmental protection and the improvement of the quality of the environment into the policies of the Union, but also other such rights including Art. 41 Good administration, Art. 42 Transparency, and Art. 47 Justice should be taken into due account.

We want to focus on a specific area: climate and energy policy, and within this area, raise the awareness of the target audiences to be able to rely on the EU Charter rights in the climate and energy-related policies of the EU.

Actual project activities will consist of researching EU legal instruments, collecting data on Member State level implementation of policies, training the target groups (CSOs, legal practitioners etc.) at training sessions and having national events with ombuds institutions and EU level events with the participation of EU institutions and journalists.

Awareness raising and training activities will be focused on procedural rights stemming from the EU Charter and the Aarhus Convention and will increase the knowledge of the target groups of EU law, the available remedies and their application in climate and energy policy matters (strategic and project level decision-making).

They will also increase the ability of the members of the target groups to develop a litigation strategy and communicate and advocate for the enforcement of Art. 37 of the EU Charter, in order to promote a high level of environmental protection with special regard to climate and energy matters.

During the course of the project, partners in Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia will hold a number of events and meetings where you can join us and get insight into our work relating to the enforcement of Charter rights.

To find out where and when exactly we are having our events, please follow the project partners’ websites where information is published on recent and upcoming meetings.

Also, follow the Facebook and X pages of Justice and Environment to get info on our project’s progress.

Links to the project partners’ related webpages: see the Contacts and Links section below

J&E’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/justiceandenvironment

J&E’s X page: https://twitter.com/justenvinet 

The outputs of our actions are below:

• Report of the International Journalist Workshop

Austria

• Report of the first national climate rights event
• Outputs of the national public poll on climate rights issues
• Report of the second national climate rights event
• Report of the third national climate rights event
• Report of the fourth national climate rights event

Bulgaria

• Report of the first national climate rights event
• Report of the second national climate rights event
• Outputs of the national public poll on climate rights issues
• National legal study on climate rights

Estonia

• Report of the first national climate rights event
• Report of the second national climate rights event
• Outputs of the national public poll on climate rights issues
• National legal study on climate rights

Hungary

• Report of the first national climate rights event
• Outputs of the national public poll on climate rights issues
• National legal study on climate rights
• Report of the second national climate rights event

Slovenia

• Report of the first national climate rights event
• Report of the second national climate rights event
• Outputs of the national public poll on climate rights issues

Spain

• Report of the first national climate rights event
• Report of the second national climate rights event
• Outputs of the national public poll on climate rights issues
• National legal study on climate rights