CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ REFLECTIONS ON THE TOPIC OF THE CONCEPT OF PROTECTION … A certain form of enactment of substantive right to environment in EU law can also be identified under secondary EU law, namely in the framework of Directive 2003/35/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 May 2003 providing for public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programmes relating to the environment and amending with regard to public participation and access to justice Council Directives 85/337/ EEC and 96/61/EC. 54 This directive was adopted in order to implement provisions of the abovementioned Aarhus (dan. Århus) convention. Paragraph 6 of the preamble of that directive states that “ Among the objectives of the Århus Convention is the desire to guarantee rights of public participation in decision-making in environmental matters in order to contribute to the protection of the right to live in an environment which is adequate for personal health and well-being.“ This provision, in our opinion, indicates another form of declaratory recognition of the existence of substantive environmental law in EC / EU law. When examining other EU law standards, it is clear that they do not further develop this substantive law, but instead concentrate itself on the development of procedural environmental rights and substantively- understood rights – rights to water and right to sanitation (right to safe hygienic conditions of the environment) whose practical application contributes to the protection substantive right to environment indirectly. To the protection of this right the very existence of EU environmental law as such contributes indirectly, which protects the environment as a value essential to the realization of the environmental right itself in a substantive form. EU law also includes the potential for indirect protection of substantive right to environment by respecting the abovementioned European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950) and certain provisions of the abovementioned Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000, 2007). However, these options have not yet been used. Conclusion Scientific discussion on the stabilization of the new human right to environment, understood as a substantive right, strengthened in the mid-sixties of the twentieth century. The result of this discussion was the embodying of this right, according to some views of international law science also understood as a basic human right, into an international document of a fundamental nature for the protection of the environment – Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment adopted at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, June 5-16, 1972, Stockholm. Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Principle 1 of this declaration reads: “Man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being, and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations.” The enactment of substantive human right to environment in the Declaration of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment has influenced subsequent international law normativity. This right was implemented in various other international instruments and 54 Directive 2003/35/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 May 2003 providing for public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programmes relating to the environment and amending with regard to public participation and access to justice Council Directives 85/337/EEC and 96/61/EC, OJ L 156/17.

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