Youth Perspectives from Students on the Right to a Healthy Environment in Europe

Together with Youth and Environment Europe, students from Utrecht University contributed to a three month project that delivered recommendations to the Council of Europe for codifying a right to a healthy environment. The project was supervised by dr Julie Fraser, member of UCWOSL, who is an expert on human rights law and the environment. The students from Utrecht University were recruited from the LLMs on Public International Law and Law and Sustainability in Europe. 

We were pleased to partner with Youth and Environment Europe (YEE), the largest independent network of youth-led environmental organisations in Europe. Representing 45 member organisations across 20 countries, they work on topics such as environmental law, biodiversity, ocean protection, and climate governance - always with a strong focus on intersectionality and justice. The project was funded by the Council of Europe. 

Symposium and a legal report

The project included research, peer feedback, presentations, and participation in a symposium on 18 and 19 October at Utrecht University. At that symposium, the following statement was agreed: “The Right to a Healthy Environment means living in dignity and equality, in harmony with nature not above it. It’s about recognising that when nature suffers, people suffer too. Protecting ecosystems is protecting our rights, our health and our future."

The culmination of the project was a legal report addressed to the Council of Europe entitled: “The Right to a Healthy Environment: A Youth Framework for the Council of Europe”. It analyses the proposal for an Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights that explicitly protects the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The report elaborates upon the triple planetary crisis of pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change and its impacts specifically on youth in Europe. The report concludes with a draft Additional Protocol to the Convention that reflects youth priorities including the right of future generations, the intrinsic value of nature, and embedding meaningful participatory rights.

The students finalised a legal publication