Guide on Article 8 of the Convention – Right to respect for private and family life
9. Environmental issues 2324 158. Although there is no explicit right to a healthy environment under the Convention (Hatton and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], § 96), the Court has decided various cases in which the quality of an individual’s surrounding environment is at issue, reasoning that an individual’s wellbeing may be negatively impacted by unsafe or disruptive environmental conditions (Cordella and Others v. Italy, §§ 157-160). However, an issue under Article 8 only arises if individuals are directly and seriously affected by the nuisance in question and able to prove the direct impact on their quality of life (Çiçek and Others v. Turkey (dec.), § 32 and §§ 22-29 for a summary of the relevant case-law in the context of air pollution; Fadeyeva v. Russia, §§ 68-69, where the Court stated that a certain minimum level of adverse effects of pollution on the individual’s health or quality of life must be demonstrated to engage Article 8). Article 8 may apply in environmental cases whether the pollution is directly caused by the State or whether State responsibility arises from the failure to regulate private sector activities properly. The applicability of Article 8 has been determined by a severity test: see the relevant case-law on environmental issues in Denisov v. Ukraine [GC], §§ 111. In Hudorovič and Others v. Slovenia, the Court made clear that even though access to safe drinking water is not, as such, a right protected by Article 8, “a persistent and long-standing lack of access to safe drinking water” can have adverse consequences for health and human dignity effectively eroding the core of private life. Therefore, when these stringent conditions are fulfilled, a State’s positive obligation might be triggered, depending on the specific circumstances of the case (§ 116). 159. On the merits, regard must be had to the fair balance that has to be struck between the competing interests of the individual and of the community as a whole; and the State enjoys a certain margin of appreciation in determining the steps to be taken to ensure compliance with the Convention (Powell and Rayner v. the United Kingdom; López Ostra v. Spain, § 51; Giacomelli v. Italy, § 78). 160. In López Ostra v. Spain, § 51, the Court ruled that severe environmental pollution could interfere with the right to respect for private and family life (and home) by potentially affecting individuals’ wellbeing and preventing them from enjoying their homes, thus adversely affecting their private and family life. The applicant claimed that the family home was subject to serious pollution from a private tannery reprocessing plant built with State subsidies on municipal land 12 metres from applicant’s flat. In Giacomelli v. Italy, §§ 97-98, pollution from a privately owned toxic waste treatment plant 30 metres from the applicant’s home was found to constitute a violation of Article 8, as well as in Fadeyeva v. Russia, §§ 133-134, where domestic authorities violated the right to home and private life of a woman by failing to offer her any effective solution to help her move away from a dangerous “sanitary security zone” around Russia’s largest iron smelter in which there was high pollution and dangerous chemical emissions. 161. In several cases, the failure to provide information about environmental risks or hazards was found to constitute a violation of Article 8 (Tătar v. Romania, § 97, where authorities failed to carry out an adequate risk assessment of environmental hazards caused by a mining company; Guerra and Others v. Italy, where the local population was not provided with essential information that would have enabled them to assess the risks they and their families might run if they continued to live near a chemical factory, right up until the production of fertilisers ceased in 1994).
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See also section Home. See the Guide on Environment.
European Court of Human Rights
42/161
Last update: 31.08.2021
