Common environmental concerns leading to common strategies? : the cross-regional partnership between Africa and Europe in environmental matters : background and approaches of the development of an environmental human right

Abstract

The environmental issue in all its variety is currently one of the most important issues on the international community`s agenda – an important aspect thereby is the connection between the environment and human rights. The paper will focus on the two regions of Africa and Europe, as they both picked up the challenge and decided to play a special role in the discourse – for themselves as well as regarding their cooperation in environmental matters. To converge to the topic the paper pictures the respective regions regarding their environmental legislation – on the international, regional and domestic level – as well as the case law decided by their (quasi-) judicial bodies. The main difference between the respective regional human rights regimes is that an environmental peoples right is explicitly contained in the main African human rights document, the African Charter, whereas in the European system the European Commission on Human Rights and the European Court on Human Rights step by step developed different aspects of a human right regarding the environment. Another layer is the illustration of the partnership between Africa and Europe, its development and extent, and the inclusion of the environmental dimension into it.