8 October 2024, UN House, 7th floor conference room

Opening remarks by Elena Kountouri Tapiero, Acting Regional Representative,

OHCHR Regional Office for Europe, Brussels

Good morning and welcome to UN House, which is home to some of the 30 UN organisations and entities based in Brussels.

We are meeting today on “Joining forces to better support and protect Environmental Human Rights Defenders in Europe”, which OHCHR has organised in partnership with UN and regional partners – UNEP, UNECE, the Council of Europe and FRA – and in cooperation with the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, Mr Forst, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights, Ms Morgera.

I thank the UN special rapporteurs, EU policy makers, civil society stakeholders, academics and especially environmental Human Rights Defenders for joining this meeting in Brussels and online, to engage in a discussion on the growing challenges faced in the region by all those who stand up for our common human right to a right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.

Indeed, one of the key takeaways of the HR75 regional dialogue on the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, co-hosted in Brussels one year ago by our Office and UNEP, was the urgent need for policy makers and duty bearers to better acknowledge and address the obstacles and threats faced by environmental Human Rights Defenders in wider Europe.

We all have been witnessing how, across the region, environmental Human Rights Defenders have been impacted by shrinking civic space trends, and particularly targeted with attacks and criminalisation in a political landscape which, in a number of European States, remains, or is becoming, hostile to progressive environmental policies and activism.

And we all know how a safe and enabling environment for environmental Human Rights Defenders – many of whom are young people – is crucial to allow defenders continue their crucial efforts pushing for action necessary to protect all of us, and our planet, from the alarming environmental crisis we are faced with.

Cutting across our organisations’ work to advance the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment and to support and protect civic space and Human Rights Defenders, this meeting is an important step in our organisations’ joint efforts to better support and protect environmental Human Rights Defenders globally and in the region, as also called for in the UN guidance note on supporting governments to better respect, promote and protect EHRDs.

These efforts include the promotion and expansion of support and protection mechanisms, a critical mapping of outstanding needs and gaps and a common reflection on possible responses – including the idea of a regional Forum for environmental Human Rights Defenders – which we very much look forward to discussing with you today, and in the months to come.

I would like to now invite Ambassador Andriy Zayats, Head of Office of the Council of Europe Liaison Office to the EU, to address to you welcome remarks from the Council of Europe’s side.