The plaintiff Urgenda, a foundation committed to a more sustainable society, brought a claim on behalf of over 800 individuals against the defendant, the state of the Netherlands, regarding climate change. Specifically, the plaintiff asked the court to rule that it would be unlawful for the defendant not to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by …Read more

The National Environment Management Authority (“NEMA”) demolished the petitioner’s house after serving notice that his residential property was in a wetland. He filed a Constitutional Petition in the Constitutional Court maintaining that his rights over his property and his right to a hearing and to an appeal had been violated. He claimed that Sections 67, …Read more

Traube, the applicant is a German national owning and operating a farm located in Salzgitter-Bleckenstedt. In 1991, a plan-approved procedure was opened for the transformation of an iron ore mine near the applicant’s farm to be transformed into a nuclear waste repository for the final disposal of low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste. The plans were …Read more

This case concerned the Kichwa nation of the Ecuadorian Amazon, which encompassed two Peoples who shared the same linguistic and cultural tradition. The State of Ecuador had granted a private oil company a permit to carry out oil exploration and exploitation of activities in the ancestral territory of the Kichwa nation. The State did not …Read more

The governor of the Miyazaki Prefecture granted permission for a company that collects, transports, and disposes of industrial waste to establish an industrial waste treatment facility. When the company applied for permission, it submitted a document called the “Environmental Impact Survey Report,” which detailed the survey results regarding the impact of the establishment of the …Read more

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a non-governmental organization, filed a case against the Federal Republic of Nigeria alleging human rights violations as a result of the government’s failure to ensure adequate environmental protection in the Niger Delta due to oil spillage. SERAP alleged that decades of oil prospection and exploitation by private corporations …Read more

This case addressed the issue of whether Hong Kong’s Director of Environmental Protection (the ͞Director) had the authority to approve an environmental impact assessment (the ͞EIA) of certain proposed Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge projects (the ͞HKZMB Projects) if the EIA did not contain a quantitative stand-alone analysis of the projected environmental impact of the HKZMB Projects. …Read more

This report addresses the admissibility of a petition that alleged the United States failed to fulfill its obligations under the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man (the Declaration) and the American Convention on Human Rights (the Convention), including protection of the right to health and equality before law. Mossville, Louisiana is a …Read more

Petioner brought action before the Constitutional Court, challenging the constitutionality of Law 1335 of 2009, which imposes a general ban on all forms of tobacco promotion, advertisement and sponsorship and in this case, its constitutionality is being questioned. It imposes bans on behaviors aimed at promoting the consumption of a particular group of goods but …Read more

Petitioner, the Paraguayan subsidiary of Philip Morris, filed a Writ of Amparo challenging the constitutionality of two administrative decrees (i.e., regulations emanated from the Executive Branch) that regulated and implemented Articles 8 and 11 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), and thus provided for stronger warning/labeling requirements than those of the law …Read more

Petitioners were a consortium of tobacco companies that filed a Writ of Amparo challenging the constitutionality of two administrative decrees (i.e., regulations emanated from the Executive Branch) that regulated and implemented Articles 8 (Protection from exposure to tobacco smoke) and 11 (Packaging and labelling of tobacco products) of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control …Read more

Miguel Ignacia Fredes Gonzalez and Ana Andrea Tuczek Fries, among others, filed an information request with the Agriculture and Livestock Service (the “SAG”), a department of the State’s Ministry of Agriculture, requesting information and documents related to transgenic crops and their location.The national director of the SAG failed to answer the request within the time …Read more

In May 2007, the State of Panama, without community consultation, granted a concession for the construction of a hydroelectric dam within the traditional lands of an indigenous community, the Ngöbe. Although the construction of the dam was still in its initial stages at the time the petition was filed, the petitioner alleged that the work …Read more

Petitioners alleged that environmental pollution from a metallurgical complex in La Oroya, Peru caused a series of violations of the rights of community members. They alleged Peru was guilty by act and omission for its failure to control the metallurgical complex; its lack of supervision of the facility’s operation; and its failure to adopt measures …Read more

This case was heard together with case 70/2009-0-0. The Petitioners, Miroslav Grcev and Stamen Filipov, challenged the constitutionality of the Anti-Smoking Law (the Law). The Law banned smoking in public premises, advertising cigarettes, and selling cigarettes to persons under the age of 16. Public premises included institutions for education, health, state administration,  public transport, and …Read more

This case was heard together with case 261/2008-0-0. The Petitioners, Miroslav Grcev and Stamen Filipov, challenged the constitutionality of the Anti-Smoking Law (the Law). The Law banned smoking in public premises, advertising cigarettes, and selling cigarettes to persons under the age of 16. Public premises included institutions for education, health, state administration,  public transport, and …Read more

Three telecommunications companies sought to annul an ordinance passed by the Brussels Capital Region concerning the protection of the environment against the harmful effects of non-ionizing radiation. The provisions sought to restrict the levels of non-ionizing radiation produced in the environment, particularly from telecommunications equipment. The applicants alleged that the provisions adopted by the Brussels …Read more

The complainants, two human rights organizations based in Sudan, the United Kingdom and Canada, alleged gross and systematic violations of human rights on the part of the Republic of Sudan and Government-supported militia forces in the Darfur region against indigenous tribes, including the Fur, Marsalit and Zaghawa. The organizations alleged that since General Omar Al-Bashir …Read more

The Public Ombudsman brought a preventive action against the Ministry of Housing, Zoning and the Environment and the Municipal Government of Montevideo, for lead contamination in the soil of the neighborhood of La Teja. The contamination was discovered in 2001, and a number of measures were taken by relevant public agencies and by the executive …Read more

B, a Romanian national, was sentenced to ten years in prison for fraud by the Court of Appeal of Timisoara. In January 2003 B lodged an application with the European Court of Human Rights based on the conditions of his detention in the prisons of Arad and Timisoara. B alleged that Romania violated Article 3 (prohibition of torture) of the European …Read more

Applicants were residents of Kyambogo Lower Estate, where they used a common facility for sanitation in the form of septic tanks. The channels leading to those tanks were located on a road reserve and the Respondent intended to erect a perimeter fence around that road reserve. Respondent was given an offer, containing certain terms and …Read more

The petitioners were pastoralists and communal landowners in the Baringo District in Rift Valley Province, Kenya. The petitioners alleged that the respondents (the Attorney-General, the Minister for Environmental and Natural Resources, the National Environment Management Authority, and the County Council of Baringo) were liable for violating their rights to life (under Section 71 of the …Read more

The Constitutional Court considered the persistence of an unconstitutional state of affairs with regard to forced displacement, which disproportionately affected women in Colombia. The Court originally declared an unconstitutional state of affairs in Ruling T-025 of 2004 and again in Resolution 218 of 2006. More than half the displaced people in Colombia  (54 per cent) …Read more

Circular No. 03-2006 of the Municipality of Oreamuno designated an area within the public building to serve as a smoking room in accordance with Law N°7501 (1995), which provided for such spaces. The designated area was the aisle leading to the kitchen. Petitioner sought relief from the alleged violation of her right to health as …Read more

Tanzania was awarded funding from the World Bank to repair, upgrade, and expand the water and sewage infrastructure of Dar es Salaam. As a condition of the funding, Tanzania was required to appoint a private company to manage and operate the infrastructure improvements. The plaintiff, a British and German company named Biwater Gauff (“BGT”), won …Read more

Residents of the Matanza-Riachulo river basin brought a class action against the National State, the Province of Buenos Aires, and the city of Buenos Aires, as well as a number of businesses, for injuries resulting from pollution of the area. A lengthy information collecting process began in 2006. The Supreme Court of Argentina found that …Read more

The Appellant, a former Member of Parliament, filed a writ petition in the High Court of Bangladesh against the Government and other public authorities for their failure to comply with the Environment Conservation Act 1995 and the Environment Conservation Rules 1997. The petition alleged that there was widespread arsenic contamination in tube wells across the …Read more

Mr. Syed Mansoor Ali Shah petitioned the High Court at Lahore, asserting that air pollution from vehicular emissions had severely affected human life by causing citizens to suffer diseases. Under Rule 163 of the Provincial Motor Vehicles Rules 1969, the owner of a vehicle was required by law to properly maintain the vehicle so that it did not cause damage or annoyance to …Read more

The applicants were a group that advocates for improvement of Hong Kong’s air quality. They alleged that the Hong Kong government did not enact adequate legislation or effective policy to combat air pollution and that this failure was a breach of the government’s legal duty to ensure the right to life and the right to …Read more

The four applicants alleged that pollution levels near their homes violated their right to respect for their private and family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“Convention”). All the applicants lived within a “sanitary security zone” around a local steel plant and were exposed to concentrations of dangerous substances above …Read more