The Comb Lab letter : The Environnement Charter turns 20
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/contenu/menu/droit-national-en-vigueur/constitution/charte-de-l-environnement
This is the title of a recent issue of the Revue des Droits de l’Homme1 . This Charter, which has constitutional status, has been incorporated into the constitutional body of French law. Admittedly, the constitutionalisation of the Charter marks an undeniable victory. However, the authors of the articles that make up this thematic dossier temper this enthusiasm somewhat. They point to shortcomings in the application of the terms of the Charter. Hence, for example, the emergence of environmental litigation against certain industries or states. Among the disappointments resulting from the gap between the text and the reality on the ground, two in particular stand out.
The first, often denounced in our letters, concerns the lack of effect of the constitutionalisation of the duty of ecological prevention on the gap between the time taken for political compromise2 and the speed of desertification in hot regions and the melting of polar ice. This temporal dissonance between the biophysical reality of the planet and the timeframe of political decision-making calls into question the rights and principles set out in the Charter: « the right to a healthy environment, the principle of participation and the right to information, the precautionary principle, the principle of prevention, the principle of sustainable development and the principle of responsibility ».
The second disappointment is the lack of participation by civil society in the environmental consultation phases. In this dossier, Charlotte Girard talks of « structural obstacles »3:
« Among the rights proclaimed by the Charter of the Environment, the right to participation has been particularly unproductive. Twenty years after it was incorporated into the Constitution, Article 7, which states that « Everyone has the right, under the conditions and within the limits defined by law, to have access to information relating to the environment held by the public authorities and to participate in the preparation of public decisions having an impact on the environment », has not produced the effects that might have been expected, particularly in its participatory dimension.
What was presented as a democratic advance inseparable from ecological progress has remained in the shadow of a right to information occupying the first part of Article 7. Yet the right to participate in the shaping of decisions that have an impact on the environment is precisely the inauguration of a popular power that has only rarely, or often pejoratively, manifested itself, leading to minor victories and major disappointments ».
« The institutional arrangement of the constitution in which the Charter of the Environment took its place in 2004 in a way overdetermines the exercise of power and keeps it in the hands of the representatives, particularly those of the executive, while quite systematically denying it to the represented. (…) Defending ecological causes on the basis of Article 7 of the Environmental Charter would be an opportunity to defend democracy itself, which we now know to be the precondition for effectively ecological government. Conversely, the powerlessness of the Charter, particularly in Article 7, an act of supreme hierarchy, in ecological as well as democratic matters, heralds a double defeat: that of concrete action to safeguard a viable ecosystem for humanity and that of the exercise of sovereign power shared with the people ».
The experience of the Citizens’ Climate Convention, which went from « unfiltered » to taking on board only 15% of the 149 recommendations, has left three types of mark. Firstly, it demonstrated the actual level of consideration for environmental issues at the top of the political hierarchy. Secondly, it confirmed the degree of mistrust towards civil society. Lastly, and as a consequence of the previous two points, the difficulty of social acceptance of measures to mitigate climate change will have gone up a notch. In this respect, it should be noted that local elected representatives, who are in touch with the realities on the ground, are showing greater pragmatism in bringing about change in their areas.
At a time when rights and freedoms are being curtailed on the pretext of security, when information, education, law and justice are being cut to shreds by illiberal powers, the public can see at first hand the fragility of national regulations and international conventions. It is against this backdrop that it is now up to associations to think about the near future in terms of building resilience in our localities.
As a result of all the above, we are delighted that civil society in all its diversity will be taking part in the Combrailles food forum to be held on Saturday 17 May in Saint Gervais d’Auvergne. This major event, led by the Syndicat mixte d’aménagement et de développement des Combrailles, is mobilising local citizens and stakeholders from the very outset. It gives civil society the opportunity to take action to build local resilience, which for the associations is an opportunity to help bridge the gap between the timeframes mentioned above.
1 https://journals.openedition.org/revdh/21805
2 Let us explicitly point ot that we give full semantic power to « compromise » as « agreement obtained by mutual concessions » (dictionnaire historique de la langue française. Under the direction of Alain Rey. Le Robert 1999).
3 https://journals.openedition.org/revdh/21760