Environmental disasters litigation and human rights : suing the State for civil liability

Abstract

The research will explore in a comparative perspective environmental disasters litigation to examine the degree of effective protection of individuals against the States who are sued in civil liability, both in a national and supranational framework. The elements of damage being compensated in tort liability will be analyzed in each of the considered systems to analyze its amplitude and its capacity to include every kind of harm beside exploring the possibility to promote more effective judicial tools (i.e. class actions) to enlarge protection and to prevent any other attempt to human life in this sensitive area of civil liability. A particular attention will be addressed to the violation of human rights derived from environmental disasters with particular reference to art. 8 of ECHR recently enhanced by European Court of Human Rights (see 2019 Cordella v. Italy judgment), as the violation of it is considered suitable for integrating the State liability regardless of the infringement of an autonomous, clearly defined right to health, whose subsistence can aggravate State liability and extend compensation of damage while whose absence will not prevent the success of judicial action for damages. In this sense a new conception of wellness inside the art. 8 of ECHR is recognized, able to trace to the environmental contamination the infringement of the right to a peaceful life susceptible to compensation.