ABSTRACT

The purpose of this contribution is to analyse whether and how the protection of a clean environment or the climate can be realised through the positive obligations of states to protect human life and health that can be derived from Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The contribution includes an attempt to reconstruct the rights to respect, protect and fulfil human rights in environmental matters, as well as the scope of states’ obligations in the field of adaptation and mitigation of climate and environmental risks, as a precondition for the adequate and sufficient protection of human life and health. The thesis of the contribution is that the concretisation of states’ positive obligations within the above scope requires taking into account both the general principles of interpreting obligations to protect human life and health in the context of environmental hazards, and the specific criteria for determining what specific actions, in specific factual circumstances, the state is obliged to take in order to fulfil its obligations under Articles 2 and 8 ECHR. The contribution also presents a catalogue of the most important interpretation principles and specific criteria of the concretisation of states’ positive obligations.

INTRODUCTION

The protection of the environment, both from pollution or degradation, and from climate change, is becoming one of the most important challenges of our time, the implementation of which requires specific action on the part of both states and individuals themselves. The system of human rights protection, including the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), is increasingly being used to define the obligations of public authorities in this regard. The ECtHR itself stresses that environmental pollution and its protection have become a subject of important and growing public interest for states and societies.

Th ere is no doubt that the ECHR does not explicitly recognise a human right to a healthy environment, and does not guarantee the general protection of the environment as such, although such a right is sometimes recognised in other instruments of international law, such as the European Social Charter (ESC).