The Council of Europe has long championed environmental protection, linking it closely with human rights.
Through its pivotal conventions, the Council of Europe ensures that biodiversity conservation, disaster resilience and environmental preservation is tied to human dignity and well-being. The Council of Europe has recently stepped up its efforts, adopting in May 2025 the Council of Europe Strategy on the Environment (2025–2030), which takes a forward-looking and multidisciplinary approach, seeking to integrate environmental protection with the promotion of justice, democratic governance, and social cohesion.
Priorities for Environmental Protection in the Council of Europe
Strengthening our work at the Council of Europe on the human rights aspects
of the environment based on the political recognition of the right to a clean,
healthy and sustainable environment as a human right.
The adoption yesterday by the UN General Assembly of a resolution on the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on climate change sends a strong and timely message: climate action and human rights are inseparable. The resolution reaffirms that states have obligations under...
Who Does What for Environmental Protection in the Council of Europe
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled on over 300 environment-related cases, applying the rights to life, respect for private and family life, freedom of expression and assembly, a fair hearing and property to a wide range of issues including pollution, environmental disasters, access to information and court procedure.
The Bern Convention Standing Committeemonitors how countries respect their commitments to nature conservation and biodiversity. The convention covers most of Europe and parts of Africa, promoting cooperation and the preservation of wildlife and natural habitats. The committee identifies environmental problems, conducts scientific appraisals and helps countries follow up with legal and political action.
The Ad Hoc Multidisciplinary Group on Environment (GME) was established to develop a Council of Europe Strategy on the Environment. It forms part of the Reykjavík process, which aims to strengthen the Council’s commitment to protecting human rights in the face of the triple planetary crisis of pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss.
The Steering Committee on for Culture, Heritage and Landscape oversees work carried out under the Landscape Convention, strengthening the link between human rights and the environment and emphasising landscape's role in well-being and quality of life.
Two conventions set the standards in environmental protection – the Bern Convention, which safeguards European wildlife and habitats, and the Landscape Convention, which focuses on protecting the continent’s natural and cultural landscapes.
The EUR-OPA Major Hazards Agreement brings countries together to tackle disaster risk reduction, prevention and preparedness across Europe and the Mediterranean and has developed specialised centres for projects to increase awareness and resilience to major risks.
Highlights of the Council of Europe’s Achievements to protect the Environment
European Diploma for Protected Areas
The European Diploma for Protected Areas is a prestigious international award granted since 1965 by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers. It recognises natural and semi-natural areas and landscapes of exceptional European importance for the preservation of biological, geological and landscape diversity which are managed in an exemplary way.
Emerald Network
The Emerald Network is a European-wide system of protected areas designed to preserve biodiversity, which now includes over 3,500 sites.
Climate
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Switzerland in a case brought by a large group of women over sixty who said the government was not doing enough to protect them from the effects of climate change. The Court also recognised the principle that environmental associations could legally act to defend the rights and interests of individuals against the threats of climate change.
Landscape award
The Landscape award of the Council of Europe is a distinction which may be conferred on local and regional authorities and their groupings that have instituted, as part of the landscape policy of a Party to the Landscape Convention, a policy or measures to protect, manage and/or plan their landscape, which have proved lastingly effective and can thus serve as an example to other territorial authorities of the Parties. The distinction may be also conferred on non-governmental organisations having made particularly remarkable contributions to landscape protection, management or planning.
The new Convention on the protection of the environment through criminal law »
Council of Europe and the Environment »