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Chamber and committees

The Human Right to a Healthy Environment

  • Submitted by: Ruth Maguire, Cunninghame South, Scottish National Party.
  • Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 February 2021
  • Motion reference: S5M-24212
  • Current status: Achieved cross-party support

That the Parliament notes the recommendations of the First Minister’s Advisory Group on Human Rights Leadership, which were published in 2018; welcomes the subsequent establishment of the Scottish Government’s National Taskforce for Human Rights, which has focused on developing these into specific recommendations for legislation; looks forward to receiving the Taskforce’s recommendations and to advancing the discussion of how to further human rights in Scotland’s devolved context; notes the view that the concept of a Human Right to a Healthy Environment must be central to these developments, given what it considers has been the recent progress in international thinking on environmental rights, including the UN’s Special Rapporteur’s "16 principles"; notes what it sees as the unequal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been in putting important aspects of environmental rights in the spotlight, including the need to care for global biodiversity and the importance of access to good quality and local greenspace, particularly as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill progresses through the Parliament; acknowledges the importance of the right to a healthy environment for children and young people’s human rights, including in Cunninghame South, and welcomes the reported plan to bring forward proposals for a human rights bill in the next parliamentary session, to help underpin what it believes is Scotland’s role as a world leader on environmental matters.


Supported by: Clare Adamson, Sarah Boyack, Neil Findlay, John Finnie, Kenneth Gibson, Christine Grahame, Patrick Harvie, Alison Johnstone, Bill Kidd, Richard Lyle, Angus MacDonald, Rona Mackay, Gillian Martin, John Mason, Stuart McMillan, Mark Ruskell, Stewart Stevenson, Sandra White, Andy Wightman