Abstract
For almost 50 years, the Council of Europe through a series of documents has been helping to build up a set of rules, principles, and strategies related to culture, environment, ethics, and sustainable development. At the moment, one of the most important aims of the Council of Europe’s agenda deals with the elaboration of the General Principles for the Protection of the Environment and Sustainable Development, as raised in document CO-DBP (2003)2 related to the environmental subject. The intention of the Council of Europe is to encourage national authorities to implement these General Principles into their national environmental policies. These principles should have an important effect, especially in those countries which are new members of the European Union. The primary target of this paper is the study of these principles and the setting of their entailed implications in order to establish a relation between values and policy making. Quite often, the conclusions adopted by the agreements generated within the framework of the European Union are controversial. Therefore, a study aiming to lay the foundations of these principles will make the exchange of ideas easier, providing a wider and more detailed scope in the European environmental policy.
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Notes
Statute of the Council of Europe, Chapter I. Aim of the Council of Europe, Ar.1.
The Bern Convention has become an important instrument for the protection of wildlife and natural habitats. The European Union, in order to fulfil its obligations arising from this Convention, particularly in respect of habitat protection, it produced the Habitats Directive in 1992, and subsequently set up the Natura 2000 network. This Network is part of the European Community Environmental Diversity Policy in force in 2010.
These principles were respect for all life forms, common concerns of humanity, interdependence of peace, development, the environment and human rights, inter-generational equity, prevention, precaution, right to development, eradication of poverty and consumption patterns and demographic policies. (IUCN, Draft International Covenant on Environment and Development, Environmental Policy and Law Paper No 31, Revised, 2nd edition, 2000, 194 pp).
These principle were: the duty of states to ensure sustainable use of natural resources; the principle of equity and the eradication of poverty; the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities; the principle of the precautionary approach to human health, natural resources, and ecosystems; the principle of public participation and access to information and justice; the principle of good governance; the principle of integration and interrelationship, in particular in relation to human rights and social, economic, and environmental objectives.
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Acknowledgments
This article is a partial result of the Research Project HUM 2004-06569/FISO called “Análisis e implicaciones éticas de los Principios de Protección Ambiental y de Desarrollo Sostenible del Consejo de Europa (Documento CO-DBP (2003)2)” funded by the General Direction of Research of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education and the Spain Inter-ministry Commission of Science and Technology (CICYT) through the 2004–2007 National Research Plan. We are grateful to Sue Prasad for their linguistic assistance.
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Martin, M.A., Martínez de Anguita, P. & Acosta, M. Analysis of the “European Charter on General Principles for Protection of the Environment and Sustainable Development” The Council of Europe Document CO-DBP (2003)2. J Agric Environ Ethics 26, 1037–1050 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-012-9427-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-012-9427-6