THE PRECEDENT PRACTICE OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS REGARDING THE PROTECTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS (TO GENERAL THEORETICAL CHARACTERISTICS)

Introduction. Nowadays, people often suffer from the harmful effects of the negative factors of the anthropogenically altered environment. Therefore, it needs protection, in particular by officially enshrining the right to a natural environment that is safe for life and health. However, the capabilities of national legal systems turned out to be insufficient to solve the problems of protecting human rights in the face of dangerous environmental (in particular, climate) changes, so the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights is a potentially important tool in this area. Purpose. The purpose of the article is to analyze the precedent practice of the ECtHR regarding the protection of environmental (in particular, “climatic”) human rights. Results. Cases of an ecological nature, considering that the right to an environment safe for life and health is not enshrined in the Convention, are mainly considered in the context of the following articles of the Convention: Art. 2 (right to life); Art. 3 (prohibition of torture); Art. 6 (right to a fair trial); Art. 8 (right to respect for private and family life); Art. 10 (freedom of expression); Art. 11 (freedom of assembly and association); Art. 13 (the right to an effective remedy); Art. 14 (prohibition of discrimination); Art. 1 of Protocol No. 1 (the right to peaceful possession of property). The practice of the Strasbourg Court in environmental cases is an important contribution to what has been called the “greening” of international human rights law. For the European human rights protection system, the consideration of “climate” cases in particular became a turning point in the development of precedent practice of the ECtHR, in the process of which the Court tried to develop a more relevant approach to various issues of the Convention arising in the context of climate change. Prospects. In our opinion, on April 9, 2024, the ECtHR managed to cope with the just-mentioned task, but the truth of this statement requires separate proof in further scientific investigations.