By Martina Olivera

In early June 2026, the first European Forum on Environmental Human Rights Defenders was held at the Council of Europe. The event brought together representatives from international organisations, civil society, and environmental defenders to discuss how to strengthen protection for those who defend the environment. The forum provided a valuable opportunity to reflect on the challenges environmental defenders face across Europe. In this blog post, I consider how our proposal to humanize international environmental law (‘IEL’) can contribute to ensuring that environmental defenders can better protect water, air, land, flora, and fauna in a safe and enabling environment.

In our article published in the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, after analysing the legal landscape on the protection of environmental defenders, Antoine Buyse and I identified that their protection is fragmented and, arguably, weak. On the one hand, under international human rights law (‘IHRL’), there is no legally binding instrument that specifically protects environmental defenders. There are, however, several state obligations identified in the case-law of the main regional human rights courts, namely, the European Court of Human Rights (see also here) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (see also here). On the other hand, under IEL, there are legally binding instruments which specifically address the rights and protection of environmental defenders (namely, the Aarhus Convention and the Escazú Agreement), but the supervisory mechanisms only issue non legally binding recommendations. We argue that integrating legally binding state obligations arising from IHRL into the legally binding protection of environmental defenders under IEL treaties provides a stronger legal argument for states to be held accountable. 

To overcome this legal fragmentation, we argue that Article 31.3.c of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties can and should be used to bridge the gap in the protection of environmental defenders and to integrate both systems. In our paper, we conclude that human rights case-law is a necessary interpretative tool for reinforcing environmental defenders’ protection under IEL, and that states ought to harmonise their environmental law duties within an IHRL framework through the interpretative principle of systemic integration.

Martina Olivera and Antoine Buyse’s article is currently free to access on Elgaronline.

The practical consequences of the current fragmented legal framework became apparent during discussions at the first European Forum. As Michel Forst explained in an interview during the Forum, in his role as the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention (‘UN Special Rapporteur’), in his experience,  states are mostly unwilling to act according to IHRL standards. An example of this can be seen in the response adopted by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (‘UK’) to letters of allegation issued by the UN Special Rapporteur concerning non-compliance with Article 3.8 of the Aarhus Convention. In its response to complaints ACSR/C/2024/26 (Shaw), ACSR/C/2023/19 (20 environmental defenders), ACSR/C/2024/53 (Hart), the UK argued that these matters fall outside the scope of the UN Special Rapporteur’s mandate. The UK maintained that there “is no right to civil disobedience set out in the Convention” and reiterated the position set out in its declaration upon signature and confirmed upon ratification of the Aarhus Convention: namely, that Article 1 does not create any rights beyond those expressly provided in Articles 3 to 9 of the Convention. The important aspect of this example for our argumentation is that the UK is denying rights that were already recognised by being a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In other words, the UK is taking advantage of the fragmented protection of environmental defenders to deny the right to civil disobedience, more broadly contained under the right of peaceful assembly.

Two further examples that arose during the Forum push in favour of humanizing IEL. The first also concerned civil disobedience. One of the environmental defenders emphasised the importance of explicitly incorporating protections for civil disobedience into national legal frameworks. According to this view, domestic courts often fail to consider this right when assessing the actions of environmental defenders, resulting in decisions that do not adequately account for the human rights dimensions of environmental activism. While such reforms would be undoubtedly important, it could also be argued that existing international human rights obligations already provide a basis for such protection. For example, it can be argued that state parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are already bound to protect and guarantee the right of peaceful assembly, which in turn contains the right to civil disobedience (according to the Human Rights Committee’s General Comment 37). This reasoning could be invoked before national courts to enforce the protection of civil disobedience under IHRL.

The second argument emerged as a combination of the participation of an environmental defender and the keynote speech. The environmental defender described the difficulties they encountered when seeking protection at the national level. Responsibility for addressing their situation was repeatedly shifted between different state authorities, with no institution ultimately assuming responsibility for ensuring their protection. Comparative experiences suggest that this problem of institutional fragmentation and lack of coordination has already been addressed on the American continent. In the case of La Oroya population v. Peru, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights identified that states hold the obligation to establish coordination measures between the state authorities to provide effective judicial protection to environmental defenders who are being harassed. This example resonates with the keynote speech delivered by Patricia Heidegger, Deputy Secretary General of the European Environmental Bureau, who emphasised the importance of learning from developments in other regions.

Ultimately, the humanization of IEL cannot be achieved by itself. Civil society organisations, lawyers, and environmental defenders should continue to push for a humanization of IEL at all levels, including before their national authorities, regional mechanisms and international advocacy forums. I hope that this legal argument can contribute, even in a modest way, to strengthening the protection of the defenders who put their lives on the frontline to protect the environment.

Martina Olivera is an International Human Rights Lawyer and Researcher, and a Legal Advocacy and Campaign Coordinator for the Child Rights International Network (CRIN)

This blog post is related to the article, Humanizing international environmental law: clarifying state obligations towards environmental defenders through the convergence of international environmental and human rights law, which is currently free to access on Elgaronline.