Has the European Union Conferred ‘Environmental Rights' on its Citizens?

In 1977 a joint declaration ¹ by the institutions of the European Community demonstrated their desire for the rights provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights to be considered as part of the Community's legal framework. The Treaty already contained what might be termed ‘political rights’ covering voting, and eligibility to stand, for the European Parliament; and the right of free movement of workers, services and students was entailed in the very notion of a ‘common market’. As the Community's interests extended so its citizens acquired ‘social rights’ covering health and safety at work, equal pay and treatment between men and women, and pregnancy and maternity rights. ² More recently, six international environmental organisations, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, failed to persuade the Intergovernmental Conference (held in Amsterdam in June 1997) to amend the Treaty of Union so as to include in Article 8d:

Every citizen of the Union shall have the right to a clean and healthy environment, access to the decision-making process, information, and justice as part of a general right to human development. ³