The human rights campaigner, Bianca Jagger, will deliver a report to 10 Downing Street on Wednesday (26/11/14) urging the UK Government to investigate the human rights impact of fracking.

The report, commissioned by the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, recommends a moratorium on all fracking operations in the UK until a “transparent, independent and publically-funded human rights impact assessment” has been undertaken and published.

Bianca Jagger said:

“The UK Government is promoting a fracking agenda despite the well-documented health and environmental impacts. The Government has disregarded the Human Rights of ordinary citizens.

“They are rushing through changes to the law of trespass to speed up the ability of shale gas companies to frack under people’s homes without their consent. The re-writing of the law is being introduced despite widespread public concern about the health and environmental impact of fracking and in the face of overwhelming public resistance from ordinary people. The Infrastructure Bill is a violation of our basic Human Rights and of our democratic process.”

The report by a group of academic lawyers, concludes:

“There has been virtually no consideration at the policy level of the human rights dimensions of fracking.”

The authors identify the human rights legislation which the government must respect and protect and it finds that fracking potentially violates rights to:

• Life and security of person
• Water and health
• Home and private life
• Public participation in the decision-making processes for environmental matters

The report also finds that fracking could breach the rights of future generations and the human rights issues of climate change.

Accompanying Ms Jagger in Downing Street will be three of the report’s authors: Anna Grear (Reader in Law, Cardiff Law School), Evadne Grant (Associate Head, Department of Law, University of the West of England) and Karen Morrow (Professor of Environmental Law, Swansea University).

Ms Grant said:

“In light of considerable uncertainty regarding the potential impact of fracking on people, their homes and their lives, it would be a serious failure of responsibility for the UK government to authorise fracking without adequate assessment of the human rights position.”

• To coincide with the presentation of the report, the group Mothers Against Fracking is organising a demonstrate at the gates of Downing Street. Details