ENRICH: Environment, Rights and Children

Eurochild member organisation, Hintalovon Foundation- ECPAT Hungary, recently had the privilege of participating in the vibrant opening online event of the ENRICH (Environment, Rights, Children) project to witness the launch of this crucial initiative that sits at the intersection of child rights and climate change – a nexus that is both profoundly important and often overlooked.

It is nearly impossible to sum up briefly even a short, 2-hour webinar if the topic is child rights, child participation and climate change issues. The intersection of these fields is so rich and inspiring that no wonder the participants had the impression at the end of the session that we could go on for hours and still only touch upon the surface sometimes.

It all started with a primarily environmental law oriented NGO network, Justice and Environment (J&E) which – after a successful LIFE project involving the training of legal practitioners on environmental procedural rights and another CERV project researching the foundational characteristics of climate rights – ventured into the unknown (or only tangentially known) area of child rights and child participation. We as environmental lawyers have indeed encountered already the issue of child participation – if not elsewhere, then in our domestic jurisdictions, representing children as applicants in strategic environmental lawsuits. But the conceptual underpinning was missing somehow. And we knew it, that is why we teamed up with Eurochild member experts such as Szilvia Gyurkó from HIntalovon Foundation-ECPAT Hungary and Kata Dózsa from VUB Belgium.

The opening event’s objectives were to present the Environment, Rights, Children (ENRICH) project and to get to know the relevant practices of the EU and the member states while gathering input from the target groups.

The event titled CLIMATE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN IN EUROPE (Insights on Participation and Access to Justice from the J&E ENRICH Project) was held on 25 February 2025, from 10:00 to 12:00 and featured the aforementioned Kata Dózsa who presented the concept of climate rights in the context of climate citizenship, especially in light of her recently published book on children as climate citizens.

Following that, Benoit Van Keirsbilck from CFJ-EN talked about the challenges of law enforcement and the implementation of the rights of children in climate matters across Europe.

Elisa Morgera, UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights shared her experience regarding how children can be ensured real participation in related processes and also called attention to the importance of fun in involving children.

Gisela Sin Gomiz from CRIN highlighted the importance of constitutional protection of children and the relevant legislative regulations applying in this regard.

Szilvia Gyurkó from Eurochild member Hintalovon Foundation-ECPAT Hungary approached the issue of child participation from a much broader angle, calling attention to the design of social processes and the features thereof that could enhance the implementation of the rights of children.

Last but not least, Csaba Kiss from J&E presented the preliminary findings of the survey and research phase of the ENRICH project, calling attention to the awareness gap in the surveyed target audience and the importance of implementing general constitutional principles in order to ensure rights for children in the underlying issues of climate change.

The event had a few impacts:

• first, it put the ENRICH project on the map in the child rights field and generated attention in the child rights community and in major international child rights networks for the project
• second, it generated input for the project partners how to design their respective national training agendas based on the topics that have arisen
• finally, it provided for a platform to discuss broader implications of synergies between environmental and child rights agendas, and thus, it contributed to merging the two respective « bubbles »

The event was recorded and the PowerPoint as well as the video presentations are available on the website of the project here.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.