European Landscape Convention

The group included the following experts: Régis Ambroise, Michael Dower, Bengt Johansson, Yves Luginbuhl, Michel Prieur and Florencio Zoido-Naranjo.

As of 1 April 2020, 40 Council of Europe member states have ratified the Convention: Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

[3] The Convention provides an important contribution to the implementation of the Council of Europe’s objectives, namely to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law and to seek common solutions to the main problems facing European society today.

(The following is a summary of the full text, which is available from the Council of Europe[4]) The convention consists of the preamble and eighteen articles divided into four chapters.

[11] Article 16 gives any Party permission to denounce the convention, at any time, by a notification addressed to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.

[12] The European Landscape Convention of the Council of Europe is an international-level legal text that addresses the protection and management of natural and cultural heritage, and regional and spatial planning.

Its purpose is to promote and serve as an example the policies and measures of local and regional authorities or NGOs, which were adopted to protect, manage and/or plan their landscape, and have proven to be effective.