The European Social Charter and emerging social rights: a closer look at the right to access environmental information

Abstract

Nowadays social rights protection constitutes a fundamental objective. In Europe, the Revised European Social Charter plays an important role as the guardian of the social welfare model. Its recognized status as Europe´s genuine Social Constitution is reflected in the fact that it offers the highest standard of social rights protection, including, naturally, emerging social rights. Thus, it seems interesting to study the right of access to environmental information as an emerging social right derived, in large part, from the generic social right to a healthy environment. This right, in very simple terms, is the right of the public to receive information related to the environment. This right is not a mere requirement of the Welfare State, but constitutes a vital and necessary minimum to protect the inherent dignity of all human beings and in the inviolability of the human person. This, in turn, allows individuals to effectively exercise other rights and freedoms, dependent, to a greater or lesser extent, on the environment and the information available thereof. This paper analyzes the materialization and the normative and jurisprudential evolution of the right to access environmental information. The paper also examines its recognition and effectiveness through the European Social Charter and the interpretation made by its monitoring body, the European Committee of Social Rights. The author alludes to the convergences and divergences between the fundamental rights protection systems at all levels, and promotes the necessary and prioritised application of the ESC as per the favor libertatis principle.