ABSTRACT

Plastic pollution constitutes a complex and severe problem of global scale. As plastic debris accumulates in nature, it increasingly finds its way back to humans through the food chain, the water and the air, with unknown consequences for human health, as well as for terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Additionally, it contributes significantly to the progressive deterioration of the planetary resources, affecting the enjoyment of human rights. The interdependence of human rights and environmental protection is largely recognised by international, regional and national legislation and case law. However, the relation between the human rights legal regime and the environmental legal regime is not straightforward on a dogmatic level. This contribution explores this connection with regard to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), in relation to marine plastic pollution of the Mediterranean Sea.

To this end, the contribution summarises the state of the current academic debate, and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, on the environmental dimension of recognised human rights, the procedural environmental human rights, and the human right to a healthy environment , with regard to the ECHR. Drawing on scientific assessments of the impacts of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems and humans, as well as on evolutions in international human rights law, the contribution explores arguments in favour of a state duty to protect against environmental harm caused by plastic pollution , under the ECHR, as well as conceptual challenges for the integration of environmental protection within the existing, intrinsically anthropocentric European human rights framework. Bridging environmental law and human rights law, the contribution further proposes a substantive content of a human right to a healthy environment, in respect of healthy oceans, under the European human rights regime, following the concept of ‘good environmental status’ rooted in the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

INTRODUCTION

When the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)1 entered into force in 1953, it included neither a right to a healthy environment nor any other provisions regarding the protection of the environment. As an ‘old’ human rights treaty, the ECHR essentially enshrines civil and political rights and freedoms, which focus on the human as an individual being.