He referred to Ms Ilze BRANDS KEHRIS, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, and said this was also why the connection between the United Nations was so important: the secret was a strategic agreement prepared by him and by Mr Volker Türk, then discussed with Mr António Guterres himself [UN Secretary General]. The strategy was simple: the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly would set the agenda on the environment that would allow them in their Committee and then in the General Assembly to follow up. Then it would be the other’s turn to enforce it. The Council of Europe would then do standard, enforceable standards setting, and then it would come back to the United Nations, become an example, and then be fed out all over the planet. Mr DAEMS addressed Ms JAKOBSDÓTTIR, Prime Minister of Iceland, about why the Summit was going to be so important. Discussing a new generation of rights with Mr António Guterres was about the changing context in which human beings lived, having an effect and impact on rights and values, meaning they then had to react. Artificial intelligence was an example of that fast-changing society, which required adaptation in order to protect those values. He said this was the real meaning of a new generation of rights. On top of that, he added, the intergenerational connection due to the ever-changing context was also creating a gap between generations, which was why the most dominant issue where politicians could get youth back on board was, in fact, the environmental issue provided that they could deliver. He made another suggestion to the Prime Minister, appreciating that it was also about luck. Were it with the right timing and the right words, and with a couple of “friends” in the room, they could go further than the text they have now. Mr DAEMS emphasised he was not pressuring the presidency for results, but the Council of Europe recognising that a safe, clean, healthy, sustainable environment was a basic human right was not enough, because this existed and had been done at the UN. What were needed in the statement were the words which were also enforceable, or standard setting, or legal instruments, a protocol, as was mentioned, and which they did in their report. One had to say it was a fundamental right, and one then needed to follow up on it so any citizen also could, for example, go to court and get governments to move because currently, they did not deliver. People were angry because the political world was not delivering. Mr DAEMS asked: “When do you move? When you've got no choice?” Another thing Mr DAEMS suggested was copying a model from a 1993 Summit when they had created the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), a simple instrument which brought enormous benefits over the past 30 years. This Summit could create an “ECRE”, a kind of European Commission on Environmental Rights. It was also a way of getting the youth back on board by implicating them in there. Mr DAEMS apologised for his suggestions but said he knew from experience that the presidency could be key. One could fail and one could win, success was not guaranteed unless these elements were put on the table at the Summit and could make a huge difference. Mr DAEMS concluded by saying that being equal was not about being the same. This was one of the big mistakes people always made in a society. He said that being equal was the right to be different. Ms BRYNJÓLFSDÓTTIR thanked Mr DAEMS and said the question needed to be answered by two people. She asked Ms Ilze BRANDS KEHRIS, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights about the voting explanation of the UN Resolution on the right to a healthy and sustainable environment. She asked whether the broad buy-in was a façade. Ms BRANDS KEHRIS said that passing resolutions was a very big step and signal that was sent of coming together at a moment of crisis, when the realisation was there that people were angry and people were hurting. The harm was already there. It was political and those resolutions were not binding in themselves, so the next steps were needed to see what could be done with existing binding frameworks. There was jurisprudence already at the national level on environment because there were norms that were binding at the national level and the regional level. She added that sometimes they did not look enough at other regions, like Latin America, which was quite advanced here.

20 DE JULHO DE 2023 ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

29