Jill Marshall

The Human Right to a Clean Environment–Phantom or Reality? The European Court of Human Rights and English Courts Perspective on Balancing Rights in Environmental Cases

Whilst many claim there is a human right to a clean environment, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights is examined to show how that court has balanced rights and interests in deciding relevant cases on this issue. Recent jurisprudential and academic debates on balancing are examined in this context before an analysis of some English decisions in this area to show that the existence of a human right to a clean environment may indeed be a phantom.

Feminist reconstructions of universalism and the discourse of human rights

In recent years, universal principles and, in turn, the universalistic discourse of human rights, have fallen under critical review by feminist scholars. This is part of a more general suspicion of a search for universalism and abstraction in law: feminist legal scholars have highlighted and critiqued the gendered dimension of such an approach. 1 Particular concepts fundamental to political, legal and social theory such as justice, 2 equality, 3 freedom 4 and rights 5 have been under the spotlight to see if their structure leads to detrimental consequences for women. Criticisms of rights have taken a variety of forms with rights being seen as too individualistic, reinforcing existing power imbalances, failing to account for women’s experiences and focusing too much on the public sphere.