Part II - The Environmental Minimum under the ECHR

Summary

Ostensibly, both the former European Commission of Human Rights (EComHR) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) long held that there is no right to environmental protection under the Convention.² Likewise, legal commentators widely state this position as a starting point in discussions of environmental case law.³ Indeed, there is no provision in the ECHR that safeguards or so much as mentions the natural environment. The protections that have been developed under other provisions are often presented as piecemeal addendums to the conventional catalogue of civil and political rights. However, this historically well-founded scepticism has been largely superseded through the development of a nuanced doctrine on environmental harm. The absence of widespread recognition of this shift in many scholarly accounts arises primarily from entrenched narratives about significant ‘landmark’ environmental cases and the superficial examination of a comparatively small sample of decisions.⁴