The UN’s Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) body found the Scottish Government has failed to implement recommendations to “guarantee access to justice to uphold environmental rights”.
The report, published on Wednesday, concludes the Scottish Government remains in breach of the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, also known as the Aarhus Convention.
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The convention guarantees the right to go to court to challenge decisions, acts and omissions that break environmental law.
For more than 15 years, UN legal experts have identified a number of areas where Scotland is non-compliant with the convention, which requires that access to justice is “fair, equitable, timely, and not prohibitively expensive”.
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To meet its obligations under the treaty, the Aarhus Convention compliance committee made six recommendations to remove barriers “as a matter urgency” that are preventing people from taking environmental cases to court.
The Scottish Government was given a deadline of October 1, 2024, but failed to meet the deadline.
After reviewing a progress report submitted by the UK Government in November last year, the committee has now concluded the Scottish Government remains in breach of the convention.
The Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS), an environmental law charity, called on the Scottish Government to take “comprehensive action” to ensure compliance with the convention.
The ERCS said environmental and human rights protections are “under threat” in the UK and globally, pointing towards Reform UK and the Tories, who have both threatened to leave the European Convention of Human Rights if they win the next general election.
Meanwhile, the current Labour Government is reportedly considering leaving the Aarhus Convention altogether in order to avoid the threat of judicial reviews, as reported by the Guardian last month.
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In Scotland, the Scottish Government dropped its commitment to introducing a flagship Human Rights Bill, which would have enshrined a legal right to a healthy environment in Scots law for the first time.
Ben Christman, ERCS legal director, commented: “The Scottish civil justice system continues to fall short of the requirements of the Aarhus Convention to ensure access to justice in environmental matters.
“The Scottish Government was effectively put into special measures in 2021 due to longstanding non-compliance. The four years which have since passed should have been used to make and implement a comprehensive plan to ensure compliance. While some positive changes have been made in that period which have improved access to justice, the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee’s recent report makes clear they were insufficient.
“We need to see comprehensive action to make environmental litigation affordable, including reforming legal aid and establishing a Scottish Environment Court.”
Dan Paris, advocacy manager at Scottish Environment LINK – a forum representing around 40 environmental bodies – said: “Empowering people to act on the climate and nature crisis has never been more important.
“Scotland is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world, our rivers and seas a choking with pollution, and this summer we were hit by the worst wildfires in our recorded history.
“Yet this latest report shows that the Scottish Government have made negligible progress in ensuring that environmental defenders can access our justice system and hold public authorities and polluters to account.”
Paris added: “It’s time for our government to stop make excuses and make environmental litigation affordable, so that we are all able to stand up for nature and uphold our environmental rights.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government is currently working with the other UK administrations to consider the findings of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee. Once the considerations are concluded we will provide our position as part of the wider UK response, ahead of the next Meeting of the Parties in November.”