The Secretary General of the 47-nation Council of Europe, Marija Pej\u010dinovi\u0107 Buri\u0107, the Chair of the Committee of Ministers and Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, and the President of the Council of Europe\u2019s Parliamentary Assembly, Rik Daems, have issued the following statement:<\/p>\n
\u201cAlongside the huge challenges brought by the coronavirus pandemic, it is clear that climate change and damage to our natural environment pose an immense threat to our well-being.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe European Convention on Human Rights, which turns 70 this year, helps to protect our lives, our families and our homes against environmental threats \u2013 and in all other circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe European Court of Human Rights has already ruled in some 300 cases linked to the environment, covering issues ranging from dangerous industrial activities to waste management and pollution.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmong other things, the Court\u2019s case-law has helped to guarantee people\u2019s right to pass on and receive information about environmental issues, to join forces with others, to take part in decisions which affect them and to challenge official decisions in court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have also seen how the Convention can be used at national level to press governments to take faster and more drastic steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoreover, the European Social Charter has been interpreted as covering the right to a healthy environment, leading to several important decisions and conclusions from the European Committee of Social Rights prompting state action on environmental issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs countries across Europe emerge from lockdown and look to the future, we must make full use of the tools we have \u2013 including human rights \u2013 to help build and maintain a healthy environment for generations to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should also consider how to further sharpen those tools to make them as effective as possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe therefore fully support the declaration adopted last month by the previous, present and future Chairs of the Council of Europe\u2019s Committee of Ministers calling on the organisation to start working towards a new legal text on human rights and the environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cFurthermore, we eagerly look forward to the High Level International Conference on \u2018Human Rights for the Planet\u2019, to be held at the European Court of Human Rights on 5 October, and the discussions on democracy\u2019s contribution to saving the environment which are scheduled to take place at this year\u2019s World Forum for Democracy in Strasbourg from 16 to 18 November.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are convinced that respecting human rights and protecting the environment go hand-in-hand. We should make full use of, and further strengthen, the powerful tools that we have to help build a better future for us all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Secretary General of the 47-nation Council of Europe, Marija Pej\u010dinovi\u0107 Buri\u0107, the Chair of the Committee of Ministers and Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, and the President of the Council of Europe\u2019s Parliamentary Assembly, Rik Daems, have issued the following statement: \u201cAlongside the huge challenges brought by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embassy-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mfa.gr\/cyprus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mfa.gr\/cyprus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mfa.gr\/cyprus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mfa.gr\/cyprus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mfa.gr\/cyprus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mfa.gr\/cyprus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mfa.gr\/cyprus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mfa.gr\/cyprus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mfa.gr\/cyprus\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}