Environment Food and Rural Affairs written statement – made at on 21 November 2006.
Barry Gardiner
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) (Biodiversity, Landscape and Rural Affairs)
Today the UK ratified the Council of Europe's European Landscape Convention which aims to promote landscape protection, management and planning, and to organise European co-operation on landscape issues.
The ratification will apply at present only to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Ratification can be extended to the Crown Dependencies at a later date should any of those areas wish to be included.
An international organisation of member states (45 at the time of writing) in the European region; not to be confused with the Council of the European Union, nor the European Council.
Founded on 5 May, 1949 by the Treaty of London, and currently seated in Strasbourg, membership is open to all European states which accept the princple of the rule of law and guarantee fundamental human rights and freedoms to their citizens. In 1950, this body created the European Convention on Human Rights, which laid out the foundation principles and basis on which the European Court of Human Rights stands.
Today, its primary activities include charters on a range of human rights, legal affairs, social cohesion policies, and focused working groups and charters on violence, democracy, and a range of other areas.
