Five years after the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) took the landmark step of recognizing the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, the global legal landscape regarding environmental protection has fundamentally shifted. What began as a pivotal resolution in October 2021 has blossomed into a robust framework that is now reshaping how nations, courts, and civil society address the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
The UN’s recognition was far more than a symbolic gesture. By cementing this right at the global level—a move subsequently backed by the UN General Assembly—the international community established a normative benchmark. Today, this standard serves as a cornerstone for legal arguments in courtrooms and a guiding principle for legislative reform across the globe. With more than 160 states already integrating environmental rights into their domestic constitutions or treaties, the UN’s action has provided a cohesive legal language that empowers communities to hold governments and corporations accountable.
For environmental human rights defenders, this recognition has been particularly consequential. As the space for civil society to operate shrinks, and as defenders face escalating levels of criminalization and legal harassment, the formal acknowledgement of a healthy environment as a human right provides a vital layer of protection. It reframes the work of activists not as a nuisance to development, but as the essential defense of the foundational conditions required for human dignity and survival.
The practical impact of this shift is increasingly visible in the judiciary. The International Court of Justice, in its recent 2025 advisory opinion on climate change, underscored that the right to a healthy environment is inherent in and essential for the enjoyment of other established human rights. This development has provided litigators with a clearer path to challenge state and corporate negligence, linking environmental destruction directly to the violation of human rights. From UN treaty bodies clarifying substantive obligations to national courts citing international benchmarks to mandate climate action, the “ripple effect” of the 2021 resolution is driving a new era of climate litigation and policy accountability.
Despite these global strides, a significant institutional gap remains in Europe. While regional human rights systems in Africa and Latin America have explicitly integrated the right to a healthy environment into their binding legal frameworks, the Council of Europe—despite overseeing one of the world’s most sophisticated human rights regimes—has yet to codify this right in a dedicated, binding instrument.
For advocates at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), this omission is becoming increasingly untenable. Francesca Mingrone and Sébastien Duyck, senior attorneys at the organization, argue that the absence of a binding European treaty creates an inconsistency that weakens the continent’s ability to respond to the accelerating environmental crisis. Given that the majority of Council of Europe member states already recognize this right at the national level, a regional treaty would serve as a necessary harmonizing mechanism. It would create clear, enforceable obligations for states to prevent environmental degradation and provide effective remedies for those harmed by pollution and climate change.
As climate-related disasters—from extreme heatwaves and wildfires to severe water scarcity—continue to disrupt social and economic stability across the continent, the urgency for a cohesive European legal response is mounting. The lessons from the past five years are clear: the formal recognition of environmental rights at the international level is a potent catalyst for legal and social progress. By closing the legislative gap within its own regional system, Europe has the opportunity to align itself with global standards, ensuring that environmental protection is treated not as a policy preference, but as an indispensable obligation to its citizens.
The path forward, according to experts, lies in translating the successes seen in Geneva into regional reality. By codifying the right to a healthy environment, the Council of Europe could provide its citizens with the robust tools necessary to navigate the environmental challenges of the 21st century, ensuring that the protection of the planet is recognized as a fundamental pillar of human rights law.
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