In the context of the 70th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade and the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Office in Belgrade organised on 10 March 2021 an online panel discussion on environmental litigation and human rights in Serbia, attended by over 80 participants. The event was preceded by an expert discussion for legal professionals that was organised in September 2020 within the action “Strengthening the effective legal remedies to human rights violations in Serbia”, implemented under the European Union and Council of Europe joint programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”.

While the right to a healthy environment is not explicitly stated in the European Convention on Human Rights, to this date, the European Court of Human Rights has decided on 300 cases related to environmental protection. That said, only of those cases has been filed by a Serbian citizen. This discussion evaluated the underlying reasons and explored the path of human rights protection mechanisms as a possible way to strengthen the standing of environmental protection cases in Serbian courts.

Natalia Kobylarz, Senior Lawyer at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights, presented the relevant environmental case law of the European Court of Human Rights, emphasising cases of environmental concern that are most relevant to the Serbian context. She highlighted in particular that the Court has been treating the cases related to environment and climate change with increasing priority. The following panellists, Nebojša Zelenović, former Mayor of Šabac, and Jovan Rajić, Chairman of the Managing Board at the Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute, presented the challenges they have faced while pursuing environmental protection in their respective domains.

This event came in a time when the theme of environmental protection is becoming increasingly prominent in the public debate in Serbia and in Europe more generally. The panellists agreed that the human rights path to environmental protection has its merits that have not been fully exploited in the Serbian context. They expressed hope that the participants of the discussion increased their awareness about the overlap of environment and human rights in order to transfer these insights into their work, despite the outstanding challenges.

The recording of the discussion is available on the  Facebook pages of the Council of Europe Office in Belgrade

and of  Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Office in Belgrade .