Children's environmental rights under international and EU law. : the changing face of fundamental rights in pursuit of ecocentrism

This book is dedicated to a topic which has for a long time lacked the attention it deserves within the academic world. It intends to address in a coherent and comprehensive manner the problem of the environmental rights of the child, which are not identical to the ones of adults whose environmental rights have been appraised from a general point of view. In the absence of any international law instrument explicitly granting a child the right to a clean environment, drawing on an extensive and original analysis of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the practice of its monitoring body, this book undertakes an assessment of the extent to which these challenges may be overcome through a greater engagement between international law on the rights of the child and international environmental law. The result is the first comprehensive study on the manner in which these two mutually reinforcing legal regimes can interact to strengthen the protection of children’senvironmental human rights at stake in the increased strategic environmental and climate litigations at both the national and international level. The book is recommended reading for, amongst others, policy makers, international environmental lawyers and human rights lawyers and practitioners. Additionally, lecturers, students and researchers from a range of disciplines will also gain from seeing how new legal scholarship and intertwined branches of international law contribute to the continual development of the living rights of the human rights conventions. Francesca Ippolito is Associate Professor of International Law in the Department of Political and Social Science of the University of Cagliari, Italy. She holds the Jean Monnet Chair on European Climate of Change - REACT for 2021-2024. Contents 1 Setting the Scene: From the Environment as an Object To Be Protected Towards an Environmental Right(s)-Based Approach—International and EU Law Perspectives 1.1 The Environment as an Object To Be Protected in International Environmental Law 1.1.1 The Accent on the Environment’s Ability to Meet Present and Future Needs 1.2 International Human Rights Law and the Protection of the Environment as a Value of General Interest 1.3 The Environment as an Object to be Protected in European Union Law 1.3.1 The Environment as an Object to be Protected Under EU Action Programmes 1.3.2 EU Primary Law and the Integration of Environmental Protection: Criteria for Compliance with a High Level of Protection ... 1.3.3 ... But Tempered 1.3.4 EU as a Global Actor for Climate Justice 1.4 A Progressive Shift Towards an Environmental Right(s)-Based Approach 1.4.1 Environmental Deprivation Undermining Existing Human Rights: Environment-Related Rights 1.4.2 Emerging Global Recognition of a Right to a Healthy Environment 1.4.3 Regional Recognition of a Right to a Healthy Environment Facilitated through Conventional Undertakings 1.4.4 More Difficult Recognition at European Level: The Different Techniques of the European Court of Human Rights 1.4.5 Attempts by the European Court of Justice 1.4.6 Beyond Human Rights: Possibilities for Recognizing Nature’s Rights Under EU Law? 1.5 The Environment and Children: An Emerging Issue? 1.6 Research Aims: A Suitable Group-Specific Right to the Environment? References 2 The Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Basis for Environment-Related Children’s Rights and the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s Contribution to Their Expansion 2.1 Environment-Related Rights Protecting Children in the Convention on the Rights of the Child 2.2 Child: A Definition and Prospects of Interpretation Regarding the Lacunae 2.3 The Environment as an Explicit Determinant of Health (Article 24 CRC) 2.3.1 Article 24 CRC in Practice—From Phase One: Raising Awareness of Environmental Concerns and the Need for International Cooperation 2.3.2 To Phase Two: Procedural Prevention and Substantive Regulatory Due Diligence 2.3.3 To Phase Three: Environmental Rights for Children 2.3.4 To Phase Four: Climate Change Impacts Becoming Mainstreamed in Concluding Observations 2.3.5 Climate-Related Petitions by Children: Sacchi et al. 2.4 The Environment as a Value in Education (Article 29 CRC) 2.5 The Environment as a Factor Contributing to an Adequate Standard of Living (Article 27 CRC) 2.6 The Environmental Dimension of the Right to Rest, Leisure and Play (Article 31 CRC) 2.7 The Environment and the Guiding Principles of the CRC 2.7.1 The Non-discrimination Principle 2.7.2 The Principle of Child Participation 2.7.3 The Survival and Development Principle (Article 6 CRC) 2.7.4 The Best Interests of the Child as a Positive Procedural Obligation and Interpretative Principle References 3 A Child-Centred Approach Between the Lines of International and EU Environmental Law 3.1 The Rationale Behind a Child-Centred Approach to International and EU Environmental Law in the Watermark 3.2 Children as Resources to Be Used to Achieve Sustainable Development 3.2.1 Soft Law Dimension 3.2.2 Hard International and EU Environmental Law 3.2.3 The Regime of Corporate Social Responsibility: The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights 3.2.4 ... and the Complementary Private Initiative of the UNICEF Children’s Rights and Business Principles 3.2.5 ... and a de Jure Condendo Mandatory EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence 3.3 Children as a Proxy for Future Generations 3.3.1 The Prodromic Roots in Child Educational Provisions 3.3.2 Information, Consultation and Participatory Rights: Between Generic and Specific Recognition in International Environmental Law 3.3.3 A Remediable Vacuum Regarding Child Participation in EU Law References 4 Children in Pursuit of Environmental Human Rights: Current Practice and Future Prospects 4.1 Environmental Human Rights: Children as Beneficiaries, Holders of Environmental Rights, and Proxies for Future Generations 4.2 Children as Beneficiaries of Environmental Protection as a Member of Their Family 4.2.1 The Relativization of the Individual Seriousness of the Risk Where Children’s Absolute Right to Life Is at Risk 4.2.2 and Where Their Non-absolute Right to Private and Family Life Is at Risk 4.3 Children (and Future Generations) as Arguable Beneficiaries of Environmental and Climate Protection: Prospects of Non-governmental Organizations 4.3.1 The Inter-American Experience 4.3.2 The African Human Rights System in Prospect 4.3.3 The European Union: So Far Silenced Children before the EU Judiciary Bodies ... 4.3.4 ... But with a Possible Enlargement of the Locus Standi Requirements for NGOs and Individuals after the Amendments to the Aarhus Regulation 4.3.5 ... and Prospects of Indirect Protection from National Litigations and Third Party Interventions before the Court of Justice of the European Union 4.4 Children as Aspirational Holders of Environmental and Climate Human Rights 4.4.1 The National ‘Win’ Model of Children as Agents for Change and Proxies for Securing Future Generations’ Rights 4.4.2 Children’s Vulnerability as Interpretative Tool in the Human Rights’ International Litigations Stretching the Perspective of Environmental and Climate Justice 4.4.3 Vulnerability and the Standing Requirements for the Victims 4.4.4 Vulnerability and the Minimum Proximity of the Factual/Causal Link as a Threshold Criterion of the New Extraterritorial Nexus 4.4.5 Vulnerability as a Fruitful Contribute to the Collectiveness and Intertemporality of Human Rights References 5 Concluding Remarks 5.1 Mind the Gap 5.2 Bridge the Gap 5.2.1 Children as Catalysts for a Human-Rights Turn to Ecocentrism 5.2.2 Children as an Intragenerational Alternative to Intergenerational Equity 5.2.3 Mutually Strengthening the Interplay Between International Children’s Law, International Human Rights Law and International Environmental Law References Index This book is dedicated to a topic which has for a long time lacked the attention it deserves within the academic world. It intends to address in a coherent and comprehensive manner the problem of the environmental rights of the child, which are not identical to the ones of adults whose environmental rights have been appraised from a general point of view. 0In the absence of any international law instrument explicitly granting a child the right to a clean environment, drawing on an extensive and original analysis of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the practice of its monitoring body, this book undertakes an assessment of the extent to which these challenges may be overcome through a greater engagement between international law on the rights of the child and international environmental law. The result is the first comprehensive study on the manner in which these two mutually reinforcing legal regimes can interact to strengthen the protection of children's environmental human rights at stake in the increased strategic environmental and climate litigations at both the national and international level