European Crackdown on Climate protests: Is the Right to Assembly Being Undermined?
Recently, human rights specialists have been criticising various countries’ clampdowns on climate protests. Climate protests, whilst designed to be disruptive in nature, are rarely violent. These protests are increasingly being met with repressive action, and countries are taking harsher stances towards protestors, and in some cases, limiting their right to assembly. In the UK, there have been two bills passed which place increased restrictions on citizen’s right to assembly: the 2023 Public Order Act and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. For the first time, protestors were arrested under the 2023 Public Order Act on Monday 30th October when the MET police in London arrested over 60 peaceful protestors. In November 2023 the police arrested 630 peaceful protesters who were campaigning against new oil and gas production. Such restrictions have also been replicated across the European continent leading to large scale arrests, as well as the harmful labelling of protestors as “eco-terrorists”.
The Public Order Act became a law in May 2023, after both houses of Parliament at Westminster approved it. The main purpose of the Public Order Act is to increase police power to restrict protests altogether. The Act criminalises “locking on”, which is any attempt to attach yourself or another person to a person, object, or land with the intention of causing serious disruption. Serious disruption includes hindering or preventing the completion of activities or construction works, as well as preventing or delaying deliveries or disrupting access to essential goods and services. The law also criminalises both actively tunnelling, as well as being equipped for it, with the intention to complete the act.
The 2023 Public Order Act was deemed “deeply troubling” by the UN Human rights chief, for giving the government enhanced power to prevent peaceful protest. Peaceful protest is a fundamental human right - protests are a way for people to voice their opinions freely and a vehicle through which society can drive change. The right to protest is protected under the European Convention of Human Rights in articles 10 and 11, and was brought into UK Law under the 1998 Human Rights Act. It is important to note that these are qualified rights, which means that they can be restricted if there is a legal basis. The whole point of protests to some extent to is to disrupt everyday life in order to promote certain issues: criminalising this is effectively reducing the right to protest. The draconian nature of these laws means that anyone protesting on a public road without prior permission is subject to potential arrest under the Public Order Act for interfering with key national infrastructure.
It is evident that the governments’ beliefs around the right to protest have been shifting, and there is no longer a belief in the inherent value of protests within the UK’s democratic society. Additionally, new legislation is framed by the government in such a way as to increase social divisions, claiming that environmentalists are disrupting the everyday life of hard-working citizens, with the current home secretary calling such protestors the “tofu-eating-wokerati” , creating unnecessary cultural battles. As the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres stated, the truly dangerous radicals are not the climate activists; the truly dangerous radicals - are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Other commentors have stated it appears that the right to protest, a key pillar of democracy, “is under threat in Britian”. Passing laws such as these are evidently limiting the ability of the climate movement and other protest movements to freely voice their beliefs, a crucial part of democracy.
Other countries who have been following the UK’s example include Germany, where protesters houses were raided, France, where the UNCHR criticised the use of force against protestors as tear gas and stun grenades were used against protestors, with the UN stating that the government must facilitate the right to peaceful assembly and the Netherlands, where over 1500 peaceful protestors were arrested at a march against fossil fuel subsidies. The spread of such repressive responses towards peaceful protests is worrying, especially at a time when the world is facing numerous crises. Governments who wish to expand their control over their citizens should be held to the highest levels of scrutiny and the right to peaceful assembly should be facilitated by democratic governments, not hindered.
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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
