Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Right to a Healthy Environment

  • Nele Schuldt

Pavlov v Russia: Welcoming the Court’s proactive shift in its handling of environmental complaints, including their evidentiary challenges*

November 15, 2022

Introduction On October 11th 2022, the third section of the Strasbourg Court delivered an important judgment in the case of Pavlov and Others v Russia (Application no. 31612/09), concerning air pollution, which will hopefully prove to have great ramifications for pending and future environmental and climate cases. In short, the majority spelled out that the […]

  • Nele Schuldt

Third-Party Intervention in Pending Climate Case: The Human Rights Centre of Ghent University submits comments in Klimaseniorinnen v. Switzerland

October 22, 2021

By Nele Schuldt The case of Klimaseniorinnen v. Switzerland has attracted much attention since it was lodged before the European Court of Human Rights (European Court, Strasbourg Court) in late November 2020. The applicants, an organization of elderly women, alongside four individual elderly women, alleged that the Swiss government had, firstly, on account of inadequate […]

  • Guest Blogger

European Court tackles unacceptable traffic noise pollution

December 01, 2010

This post has been written by Laurens Lavrysen, one of our colleagues at the Human Rights Centre.   Traffic noise pollution – especially at night – is one of the biggest health risks of contemporary Europe. This kind of pollution causes inter alia sleep disturbance, cardiovascular diseases, aberrant social behavior and stress. Guidelines from the […]

  • Eva Brems

Forced exposure to passive smoking violates human rights

September 24, 2010

Does exposure to smoking by other people violate human rights? This is a question that merits serious consideration. One context in which it has been raised is smoking in the presence of children (see the campaign of the Flemish Anti-Cancer League on this subject, with a link to my presentation on the subject). This raises […]