July 30, 2025
by Ana Radina
On 6 May 2025, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) delivered a judgment in the case of L.F. and Others v. Italy that concerns adverse effects of long-term exposure to environmental pollution in the Salerno municipality (Campania region). Flexible application of the precautionary principle resulted in the Court’s finding of a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) due to the State’s prolonged passivity and multiple failures in fulfilling its positive obligations. However, the Court refused to consider the applicants’ complaint under Article 2 ECHR, thereby continuing to treat the right to life as a subsidiary means of environmental protection and drawing criticism from Judge Georgios A. Serghides in his partly dissenting opinion. The Court also considered it unnecessary to indicate, under Article 46 ECHR, the detailed measures to be taken by the Government to redress the situation, but made it clear that the execution of this judgment would require structural measures. While L.F. and Others v. Italy is not revolutionary, there are elements that will be discussed in this blog post that make this judgment relevant in the wider context of the Court’s environmental case-law.
The Fonderie Pisano is a secondary smelting foundry (the plant/the foundry) that has been operating in the Salerno municipality since 1960 and is located in an area that was initially designated as industrial. Following the adoption of an urban plan in 2006 that expressly marked the foundry’s operation as “absolutely incompatible” with the surrounding urban context, the area was nevertheless opened for residential development without any efforts being undertaken to relocate the plant’s activities, even though this was officially suggested as a possible solution.
Environmental inspections and studies conducted over the years, most notably the regional epidemiological study (SPES) carried out between 2016 and 2021 and the court-appointed expert reports, confirmed significant pollution within the six-kilometre radius of the plant as well as elevated levels of toxic substances (mercury, cadmium, arsenic, dioxins) in the blood of local residents. Expert reports and the SPES linked these substances to increased risk of various serious health issues, including cardiovascular, neurological, and cancer-related diseases, and confirmed that the foundry was a uniquely significant and identifiable source of the pollution.
The application was brought before the Court by 153 Italian nationals residing within a six-kilometre radius of the foundry. They undertook legal and administrative efforts before the national authorities, attempting to challenge the plant’s continued operation, but to no avail. Judicial and administrative bodies established repeated violations of environmental regulations and imposed several sanctions, including temporary suspensions of the plant’s operation. Ultimately, however, domestic authorities always allowed the plant to continue operating. At the time of the parties’ latest submissions to the Court, the foundry was still working despite the foul smells and emissions continuing to be reported by the local residents.
Before the Court, the applicants submitted that prolonged exposure to harmful emissions had seriously impaired their health, well-being, and quality of life in general. Relying on Article 2 and Article 8 ECHR, they argued that the State failed to comply with its positive obligations as there was a decades-long pattern of insufficient regulation, ineffective enforcement of existing regulations and competent bodies’ decisions, as well as domestic institutions remaining inert in the face of a known environmental hazard.
Examination of the applicability of Article 8 in the specific factual context of L.F. and Others reflects the Court’s existing environmental case-law but also brings subtle evolution of criteria for establishing interference with one’s private life.
Although the applicants were unable to provide conclusive medical proofs linking their illnesses specifically to exposure to pollution from the foundry, after recapping its Article 8 test requiring an actual interference with one’s private sphere that reached a minimum level of severity, taking into account factors such as duration, intensity, and effects on health and quality of life, the Court adopted a flexible evidentiary standard and accepted that the pollution had made the applicants living within a six-kilometre radius of the foundry more vulnerable to illness and significantly affected their quality of life, finding this sufficient to attract the protection of Article 8.
This conclusion relied in particular on the epidemiological and expert reports and as such it aligns with the Court’s previous jurisprudence, e.g., Fadeyeva v. Russia or Locascia and Others v. Italy. However, aside from reinforcing and clarifying the admissibility criteria for Article 8 in environmental cases, the relevance of the Court’s conclusion on the admissibility lies also in the further expansion of the threshold beyond the quantifiable harm for individual’s health towards assessing the impact on the individual’s quality of life in general.
Having established that Article 8 was engaged, the Court turned to the merits of the case i.e., the question of whether the State has fulfilled its positive obligations. This part of the judgment does not set new legal frontiers for environmental cases as it primarily solidifies the established case-law, but it does provide future applicants with more refined practical guidance for environmental litigation, while the States are provided with a blueprint on what not to do in case there is a known environmental harm.
The Court found several significant failures on the part of Italy. Despite repeated findings of violations, domestic authorities consistently allowed the plant to continue its operation without requiring significant changes. They disregarded the historical harm and long-term cumulative effect of past emissions on the local residents’ health, and focused primarily on the current or prospective situation.
The balancing exercise carried out by Italian authorities was inadequate, as they unduly allowed the economic interests of the plant to override the applicants’ rights. While acknowledging that the plant could legitimately expect to continue with its activities, the Court was also clear about the economic interests not being a consideration that automatically overrides human rights protection. This is all the more so because in this particular case there was a feasible alternative – the relocation of the plant – as proposed in the 2006 urban plan. The Court found particularly striking the fact that ‘despite this initial condition, no relocation occurred, and the area was still opened for residential development’ (para. 156). In connection to this, it should be noted that the Court rejected the idea that the applicants had assumed the risk by settling in the area near the foundry, emphasising that they had acted lawfully and with a legitimate expectation of safety (para. 122).
Italy also failed to fulfil its procedural obligations under Article 8. By establishing that the applicants were not adequately informed of the environmental risks nor included in the relevant decision-making processes, the Court further strengthened its position on meaningful public participation in environmental decision-making as not being optional but part of the procedural guarantees under Article 8.
Although accepting that the measures taken after 2016 had certain positive effects, the Court held that this was not enough to undo its findings on Italy’s failures and to remedy the applicants’ situation, which ultimately led to the conclusion that the Italian authorities had not taken all the necessary measures to ensure effective protection against environmental harm caused by the foundry, thus violating Article 8.
By establishing that the prolonged exposure to environmental pollution can represent a violation of Article 8 in case of adverse impact on the individuals’ general well-being and quality of life, not just physical health, this judgment strengthens the doctrinal grounds for future applicants to argue state failure to address environmental hazards. This also demonstrates the growing willingness of the Court to decide on institutional accountability for systemic failures in protecting individuals’ private life from environmental harm.
In addition to Article 8, the applicants invoked Article 2 ECHR, claiming that the State had failed to fulfil its positive obligations under that provision to protect their lives from the well-known and documented health risks. The Court decided to follow the pattern established in its previous case-law and declined to examine the complaint under Article 2 separately. Citing cases like Guerra and Others v. Italy, the Court reiterated that in environmental cases involving a single source of pollution and a geographically limited area, it generally considers Article 8 sufficient to address the core human rights issues at stake.
This decision drew strong disagreement from Judge Georgios A. Serghides, which he elaborated in his partly dissenting opinion. He argued that the Court’s reasoning lacks justification in principle because simply labelling a source of pollution as “circumscribed” or the area as “limited” cannot be a sufficient legal basis for avoiding engagement with Article 2, especially where lives are potentially at risk. Judge Serghides pointed out that positive obligations under Article 2 are distinct from those under Article 8; while the rights protected may overlap, Article 2 imposes a more exacting standard on States. In his opinion, in the case of L.F. and Others the threshold for triggering Article 2 had been crossed because there was a clear risk to human life – pollution exposure was linked to measurable increases in mortality and this was not a result of an isolated incident or accident but rather a consequence of decades-long systemic inertia.
The Court has previously engaged with Article 2 in the context of industrial activities and foreseeable natural disasters, in cases like Öneryıldız v. Turkey and Kolyadenko and Others v. Russia, or most recently in the case of Cannavacciuolo and Others v Italy thatconcerned decades long illegal dumping and burying of hazardous waste. In this context, it is worth recalling that, according to one of the general principles of its well-established case-law under Article 2, the Court accepts that the materialisation of the risk, i.e., the occurrence of death, is not a conditio sine qua non for the application of Article 2 (see here). Aside from that, ‘[T]he positive obligation to protect life applies a fortiori in the context of industrial activities which are dangerous by their very nature’ (ibid.). Also, it has been observed that in Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy the Court’s assessment of Article 2 did not focus on the individual applicants’ concrete health issues but rather ‘built on the general risk of harm to human life caused by the pollution and the government’s failure to act upon it’ (see here).
Therefore, the question remains open as to why the Court keeps on holding the gate down for Article 2 even though decades of exposure to pollution in L.F. and Others have also resulted in the significantly elevated mortality risk, as shown by scientific and epidemiological evidence. Judge Serghides’ dissenting opinion sends a message of concern that avoiding the application of Article 2 in environmental cases could result in a doctrinal void, thereby limiting the development of the law and undermining the effectiveness of ECHR in responding to emerging systemic threats to life from pollution.
Relying expressly on the principle that leaves the State freedom ‘to choose the means by which it will discharge its obligation’ (para. 182), the Court rejected the applicants’ request to adopt a pilot judgment procedure and found it unnecessary to indicate the detailed measures to redress the applicants’ situation. Nevertheless, the Court made its expectations clearly known by stating that ‘the applicants’ Article 8 complaints could be remedied not only by duly addressing the environmental hazards so that the environmental impact of the foundry becomes fully compatible with its location in a residential area, but also by relocating the plant’ (para. 183). Moreover, the Court noted ‘that, in order to achieve those objectives, the national authorities remain free to use any coercive powers available under domestic law or to negotiate a mutually agreed solution with the company’ (ibid.).
While remaining within the boundaries of subsidiarity and state discretion, the Court clearly indicated that the foundry’s continued operation under existing conditions would not be compatible with the judgment, but instead, structural remedies are necessary.
Judgment L.F. and Others v. Italy does not break new legal ground, but it underscores the evolving nature of the Court’s standards with regards the application of Article 8 as the primary means of environmental protection under the ECHR. It applies precautionary principle with more flexibility and expands the threshold of admissibility of Article 8 in environmental context; it recognises cumulative environmental harm, reinforces the qualitative approach and shows a growing willingness to hold States accountable for regulatory failure as well as passivity and inaction. In this context, L.F. and Others v. Italy can be seen as a part of a shift toward making environmental due diligence a human rights obligation.
However, unlike its Article 8 part which provides future applicants with a more refined guidance for challenging States’ failures in dealing with environmental harm that adversely affects their health and quality of life in general, as well as a blueprint for States for what not to do when faced with a well-known and documented risks, this judgment stops short of providing necessary clarification of the contours of the right to life in the context of progressing environmental degradation. Even in the face of credible evidence of exposure to lethal substances, evidence that existed in L.F. and Others, Article 2 has not yet received the autonomous attention it deserves in the context of environmental pollution. Judge Serghides’ dissenting opinion points to the need to evolve the jurisprudence on Article 2 in order to keep up with increasingly threatening environmental risks and offers suggestions on how to integrate Article 2 more effectively into the Court’s environmental case-law.
The Court’s pragmatic approach under Article 46 can also be seen as a sign of evolution. In the context of long-term cumulative environmental pollution as a consequence of permanent State inertia, the growing expectations of the Court from States to employ structural and proactive measures make Article 46 not only a tool for obtaining individual compensation, but also a means to achieve systemic changes. Given that the foundry remains operational as of the date of judgment, and that previous enforcement efforts have failed to eliminate environmental risks, the execution phase in L.F. and Others will be a test of the Convention system’s ability to generate real change in environmental context.
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