BE LIFE

The overall goal of the project is to improve compliance with EU environmental law and to strengthen environmental democracy rights. The project aims to do so through these specific project objectives:

1st main objective: Improve the available resources on environmental democracy rights
The first main objective of the project is to improve the available resources on environmental democracy rights for those who are trying to exercise these rights, those with a duty to uphold such rights (public authorities, the judiciary, etc.), and other stakeholders. The newly created resources will be available publicly and aim to form the basis for legal, academic, and advocacy work for at least the next decade after the project. The project’s focus lies on three different areas of the knowledge base on environmental democracy.

2nd main objective: Build capacity for environmental and climate defenders with a focus on youth
The second main objective of the project is to build capacity amongst environmental and climate defenders. This objective builds upon the first main objective and will utilise the updated resources as to train environmental defenders and advocate for improved observance of environmental democracy rights. The aim is to increase the capacity of
environmental defenders and empower them to claim their rights, gain access to justice, and contribute to the enforcement of the European environmental acquis. With the Aarhus Convention being 25 years old, the first European experts on environmental democracy rights are retiring. Building upon this, the aim of the capacity building objective is to establish the foundation for the new generation of experts. The project’s focus lies on three different avenues of improving the capacity of environmental defenders.

3rd main objective: Support and improve the quality of claims of environmental democracy rights
The third main objective of the project is to improve the quality of claims of environmental democracy rights. This objective builds heavily upon the success of main objective number one for the relevant updated resources and knowledge base and also builds partially upon main objective two by guiding concrete claims. The aim is to improve the environmental democracy rights claims made at the level of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Mechanism with its Compliance Committee and the Rapid Response Mechanism, thereby enhancing increased environmental compliance and access to justice. Compliance cases with the Aarhus Convention, but also with national courts and administrations, are a lengthy process. The aim is to kickstart legal proceedings which will continue far beyond the horizon of the three year project. Especially when cases lead to findings of non-compliance or orders of enforcement, the effects will be felt for decades. The project aims to support the overarching objective of improving compliance with EU environmental and climate law and strengthening environmental democracy rights. The project focuses on three different levels of enhancing the compliance with the Aarhus Convention.

Climate change is here. Beyond doing everything we can to cut emissions and slow the pace of global warming, we must adapt to climate consequences so we can protect ourselves and our communities. The fallout varies depending on where you live. It might mean fires or floods, droughts, hotter or colder days or sea-level rise.

Climate change adaptation is the process of adjusting to current or expected impacts or effects of climate change.^[1] For humans, adaptation aims to moderate or avoid harm, and exploit opportunities; for natural systems, humans may intervene to help the adjustment.^[1] Adaptation actions can be either incremental (actions where the central aim is to maintain the essence and integrity of a system) or transformative (actions that change the fundamental attributes of a system in response to climate change and its impacts).^[2] The need for adaptation varies from place to place, depending on the risk to human or ecological systems. Adaptation actions can be grouped into four categories: Infrastructural and technological; institutional; behavioural and cultural; and nature-based options.^{[3]: fig. 16.5}

Adaptation is especially important in developing countries since those countries are most vulnerable to climate change^[4] and are bearing the brunt of the effects of climate change.^[5][6] Human adaptive capacity is unevenly distributed across different regions and populations, and developing countries generally have less capacity to adapt.^[7] Adaptive capacity is closely linked to social and economic development.^[8]

Source: Wikipedia

The project actions according to specific project objectives are the following:

1st main objective: Improve the available resources on environmental democracy rights

Update and annotate the collection of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee findings and recommendations
Firstly, the project will update the case law collection of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee (ACCC). The most recent collection, last updated a decade ago, covers cases from the period 2004 to 2014: the objective of this project is therefore to bring the collection to the present day, by incorporating the ACCC jurisprudence from the last ten years (2014-2024). Nevertheless, the aspiration is also to undertake a comprehensive restructuring of the collection, transforming it into an annotated resource which provides a more easily accessible breakdown of the most relevant cases for lawyers and non-lawyers alike. The updating of this collection will be closely coupled with a wide dissemination of the resultant publication which will support environmental compliance and access to justice, including through sparking new case law and give the academic debate on environmental democracy a newfound inspiration.

Create an online one-stop-shop for environmental complaints information
Building upon the updated collection but spanning a much broader subject range, the project aims to create a new online digital tool designed to serve as a guide to individuals seeking to exercise their environmental rights. The objective is to provide an user-friendly, interactive guide which can direct users towards the most suitable legal avenue for their environmental concerns. The aim is to cover all aspects of environmental issues from administrative, civil, and criminal liability to the right to review decisions of public authorities and the request of environmental information. The intention is to create a decision-tree tool which serves as a first “symptoms check” for environmental and climate defenders. Upon completing the questions and navigating through the tool, environmental defenders will find it more easy to determine which legal route may best serve their needs, if any. Moreover, the creation of this digital tool will contribute to the achievement of the third main objective by facilitating access to justice.

Better understand environmental and climate defenders’ needs
The project further aims to develop a better understanding of the needs of environmental and climate defenders and specifically those of youth defenders. While the importance of environmental defenders and their role in addressing the triple planetary crisis is well understood and documented, the requirements for a society which enables and supports environmental defenders is not. The project’s objective is to better understand what risks environmental defenders, especially youth environmental defenders, face in Europe, and what resources they are most in need of. The aim is to collect data from a wide spectrum of environmental defenders from at least 15 EU Member States via a consultation and to turn the newly acquired knowledge into clear policy recommendations for the EU but also for civil society.

Improve the foundations for access to justice in the polluter pays principle
The project aims to improve the available resources on environmental democracy rights by developing one of the least explored areas of the access to justice pillar of the Aarhus Convention. Specifically, the project targets article 9(3) of the Aarhus Convention which imposes a comprehensive obligation on signatory parties to allow members of the public “to challenge acts and omissions by private persons […] which contravene provisions of […] law relating to the environment”. Access to justice as understood through the lens of
environmental democracy includes civil liability and collective redress mechanisms. As documented by numerous studies, including a study commissioned by the European Commission, environmental civil liability is not well implemented in the EU.
The project aims to investigate the interrelation between the polluter pays principle, its associated demands in terms of civil liability, and the environmental democracy rights as understood by Aarhus Convention law. The aim is to combine theoretical and practical considerations into a report, which will have a dual purpose. On the one hand, to inform the
European Commission and the EU co-legislators in their review of the environmental democracy dimension of the polluter pays principle; as to advocate for this dimension at a time where the principle and the environmental liability directive are undergoing fitness checks and/or revision. On the other hand, the report will identify the way in which civil liability as claimed by individuals and NGOs can contribute to the implementation and enforcement of the polluter pays principle across Europe.
As part of the updating of available resources, the project will also revise selected key information resources on environmental democracy rights and their enforcement. Specifically, the project will update three reports published in the course of a previous LIFE project executed by the EEB. These reports, namely the “Challenge Accepted”, “For your information”, “Power for the people” formed an integral part of the “Implement for LIFE” project and explained how the three environmental democracy rights can aid implementation of EU environmental law. The aim is to update the legal developments described in the reports, expand them with recent relevant case examples, and highlight current challenges in the respective fields.

2nd main objective: Build capacity for environmental and climate defenders with a focus on youth

Train environmental and climate defenders directly
Firstly, the project aims to directly train environmental defenders with a focus on youth defenders through a series of hands-on workshops. The aim is to reach up to 150 people who are either already environmental defenders who may be at risk or will be environmental
defenders in the near future. The primary intention is to train  environmental and climate activists on how to use their democratic rights to obtain their advocacy goals. The secondary intention is to educate those activists on their status as environmental defenders and the rights and obligations that are connected to their activities. On the one hand, the workshops aim to educate on practical aspects of obtaining access to justice and navigating the legal environment. On the other hand, the workshops also aim to thematise the more societal aspects of the environmental rule of law as well as the roles and risks of civil disobedience as an advocacy tool. The goal is to reach predominantly young environmental activists who are most in need of support and training.

Increase the awareness among civil society of the new Rapid Response Mechanism
Secondly, the project aims to build capacity for environmental defenders through an awareness-raising campaign centred on the recently established Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) and its Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders under the UNECE Aarhus Convention. The campaign will be targeted to environmental and climate activists and civil society in collaboration with the UNECE Special Rapporteur mandate holder. The aim is to reach those activists most at risk of having their rights infringed upon due to their participation in environmental and climate protests and activism. Through raising their awareness of the UNECE Special Rapporteur’s mandate and the role of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee in protecting defenders’ rights, the project aims to reach two objectives. First, it seeks to increase the level of protection of environmental and climate by improving their ability to claim their rights and understand the protective mechanism offered by the RRM. Second, the campaign aims to empower more activists to understand their status as environmental and climate defenders and thereby exercise their activities with a better understanding of the potential risks and legal ramifications that can become part of this activism. In this vein, the project aims to link the awareness-raising on the RRM under
the Aarhus Convention with relevant EU policies, including the proposed EU Directive on protecting persons who engage in public participation from manifestly unfounded or abusive
court proceedings (SLAPPs) (COM/2022/177 final), Directive 2019/1937 on the protection of whistleblowers, Directive 2003/35/EC on public participation in environmental matters, Directive 2001/42/EC on Strategic Environmental Assessments, and related to the protection of human rights and other initiatives related to the safeguarding of human rights.

Increase decision-makers’ awareness of the Rapid Response Mechanism and environmental democracy rights
Thirdly, the project aims to increase the awareness of and support for the above mentioned Rapid Response Mechanism amongst political decision-making and public authorities. The audience of this element of the awareness-raising campaign is not only civil society but also those who would be reacting to or addressing environmental and climate defenders’ activities and advocacy. While this objective does not directly contribute to capacity building amongst civil society, its aim is to indirectly support the capacity of civil society by increasing public authorities’ responsiveness to and respect for environmental defenders and make them aware of their obligations to create an enabling and safe environment for them. The specific aim is to identify 4-8 important political decision-makers relevant to environmental issues and 4-8 relevant offices, mandates, and public authorities which would benefit the most from a better understanding of the rights of environmental and climate defenders. This part of the awareness-raising campaign relies heavily on the collaboration with the UNECE Aarhus Convention Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders whose cooperation has been secured in advance. The outcomes of the second sub-objective of the main objective one (Better understanding environmental defenders’ needs) will inform the awareness-raising activities to ensure that the most pressing needs and rights of environmental and climate defenders, particularly those of youth, are better understood. It is of paramount importance that this audience, composed of relevant political decision-makers, becomes more aware of its obligations to ensure a safe and enabling environment for defenders. The awareness
raising campaign will also be linked with task 2.5 in order to inform a host of decision-makers about the enabling requirements for private enforcement as part of the implementation of the polluter pays principle.

3rd main objective: Support and improve the quality of claims of environmental democracy rights

Improve the quality of communications to the ACCC and RRM
Firstly, the project aims to improve the quality of communications to the ACCC and the RRM and support potential communicants who are considering claims based on European environmental and climate legislation. The objective is to revive a previously existing team of highly experienced civil society legal experts who can provide hands on advice, guidance, and other support to those seeking to exercise their rights and assure environmental compliance via complaints to these two bodies. Amongst others still to be identified, the consortium plans to include two members of the previously active network also in the
compliance network associated to the BE LIFE project proposal:
– Dr Andriy Andrusevych: Co-founder and Senior Policy Expert at Resource & Analysis “Society and Environment”, European ECO Forum Legal Focal Point for EECCA countries (2007-2016). He (co-)authored numerous publications on Aarhus Convention since 2000, including three editions of the Case Law of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee.
– Yves Lador: Human rights and environmental rights consultant with more than 39 years of experience, representative of Earthjustice to the United Nations in Geneva.
The primary objective is to support at least 5 ongoing communicants and at least 30 prospective communicants with advice, guidance, and/or other interventions and representation. The secondary objective is to decrease the number of vexatious or poorly-argued communications which lead to an overburdening of the workload of the ACCC,
the RRM, the Aarhus secretariat, and crucially, those Parties concerned (countries) that must respond to such communications.

Facilitate access to relevant information on access to justice
Secondly, the project aims to facilitate access to justice via the online digital tool mentioned under the first main objective. Access to justice has many barriers, encompassing countless obstaclesof legal or procedural nature on the side of those receiving requests for access to
justice. However, a major barrier can also be found on the side of the claimants in the form of lack of knowledge and legal requirements. The aim of the online digital tool is to aid claimants in their preparation of a legal strategy when choosing to address an environmental or climate issue through the legal route. The online one-stop-shop will cover many aspects of environmental democracy and support environmental and climate defenders, including if they intend to avail themselves of the ACCC, RRM, or are better served by turning to another legal avenue.

Enhance the voice of civil society in Aarhus Convention processes
Thirdly, the project aims to enhance the voice of civil society in Aarhus Convention processes. The objective is to coordinate the representation of civil society through the Aarhus ECO Forum, a coalition of NGOs active in Aarhus Convention processes. The focus will be on advocating for compliance with the objective’s obligations and on supporting ACCC
findings relevant to the EU with the combined voice of civil society. The aim is to guarantee NGO representation at all meetings of the Aarhus Convention Task Forces, Working Group of the Parties, Compliance Committee, Bureau, and Meetings of the Parties. The consortium
partners of the project include the current coordinator of the Aarhus ECO Forum and the current observer to the Aarhus Convention Bureau (EEB). The different bodies of the Aarhus Convention, including its Task Force on Access to Justice, are a major contributor for compliance with environmental democracy rights across the EU and the additional 20 other parties to the Convention. The ultimate aim is to enhance civil society’s voice through more structured and frequent coordination meetings and collaborative efforts.

During the course of the project, partners in Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Slovenia and Spain will hold a number of events and meetings where you can join us and get insight into our climate change and climate rights related work.

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 Twitter 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 Twitter page: https://twitter.com/justenvinet 

 

to be completed…