Pushing for accountability: Youth voices at the Aarhus Convention

In the final week of June, the 30th meeting of the Working Group of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention was held at the United Nations in Geneva. Conversations and negotiations in the corridors of the Palais were cut short as the mounting heat became increasingly stifling.  Against the backdrop of a sweltering heatwave, the meeting room became a cool refuge. For many of the NGOs and civil society representatives in the Aarhus ECO Forum, the temperature added an undeniable urgency and frustration to discussions which still seemed to lack ambitious commitment.

YEE and the Compliance Committee

As the only youth observer to the Aarhus Convention, Youth and Environment Europe (YEE) intervened on topics throughout discussions to ensure that youth perspectives were accounted for during the meeting. For example, we took the floor to highlight youth experiences engaging with the Compliance Committee, the treaty’s independent body that reviews public complaints on environmental rights, and to express concerns on the funding crisis of the convention as well as intergenerational fairness. While a contact group has been set up as a result of this meeting, faced with a piling workload and reduced staff capacity, the invaluable work of the Compliance Committee is undermined if parties continue not to fulfil their financial commitments.

Added to this, a survey to compile experiences of those engaging with the Compliance Committee is going to be published. Over the days, it became clear that parties (namely the UK and the EU and its member states) were pushing for the outcomes of this unwritten survey to have the power to revisit Meeting of the Parties’ decisions and revise core mechanism documents. This is a worrying move as it raises questions as to the intentions behind these powers, which can be easily co-opted and undermine the democratic principles underlying the convention.

Raising environmental defenders’ voices

Despite these concerns, there were nonetheless hopeful breakthroughs during the week. For example, the intervention of YEE representative Xabier Gomez raised the challenges and insights gathered from the first-ever Environmental Human Rights Defenders (EHRD) Forum in Strasbourg, which took place at the beginning of June this year. By amplifying the testimonies of youth defenders and reiterating the need for the explicit protection of young environmental defenders, parties agreed to recognise the importance of ensuring the safety of environmental defenders for effective implementation of the Convention in the outcomes of the meeting.

Consolidating support for the Right to a Healthy Environment

The Campaign for the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in the Council of Europe is also continuing to build momentum. Gathering outside the Palais des Nations, a lunchtime protest reminded the 46 Council of Europe member States that we still demand political leadership to start negotiations on a binding treaty. States were invited to a roundtable breakfast where representatives from countries, institutions and civil society were able to bring questions and share ideas on the Campaign. At this event, we were able to brief States on youth perspectives taken from the EHRD Forum in Strasbourg to demonstrate how the Right to a Healthy Environment underpins the enjoyment of all other human rights. From these conversations, it is clear that we are at a hopeful tipping point to progressing this topic within the Council of Europe, momentum which provided a glimmer of hope across an otherwise sobering week.

Civil society, institutions and all other parties to the Convention must continue to advance Aarhus rights: the right to environmental information, the right to public participation and the right to access justice in environmental governance. It is of utter importance, especially during this intersessional period, if we are to safeguard our right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.