Resolving Conflicts between Human Rights and Environmental Protection: Is there a Hierarchy?

Author(s):  
Dinah Shelton
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 213-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Antonopoulos

This article explores whether a potential accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights, offers a more effective method of protection for ‘environmental human rights’: those rights whose enjoyment is allegedly affected by environmental challenges. The European Court of Human Rights has decided on claims of alleged violations of human rights by both environmental degradation and the enforcement of environmental protection policies implementing EU environmental law. On the other hand, the capacity of the Court of Justice of the European Union to decide on human rights issues has been repeatedly challenged, while the inability of the Court to protect procedural (environmental) rights when it came to NGOs, allows for challenging the capacity of the Court of Justice of the European Union to protect substantive (environmental) rights as well. Will an accession mean that applicants will be able to bring claims for alleged violations, caused by the enforcement of EU generated environmental protection policies, against the EU Institutions rather than the enforcing State? This article follows the relevant developments towards the accession, and consequently seeks to determine how the day after the accession will look for the protection of human rights affected by environmental challenges.


Author(s):  
Sarah S. Stroup ◽  
Wendy H. Wong

Despite public favorability towards international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), most of these groups toil in total obscurity. A very few INGOs, active in human rights promotion, humanitarian relief, and environmental protection, do secure widespread authority in the form of deference from multiple audiences engaged in global politics. Having achieved this status as a “leading INGO,” however, they are trapped. To maintain their status and placate their many audiences, these leading INGOs advance incrementalist proposals and achieve “vanilla victories” - palatable to a wide array of audiences, but also unremarkable. Meanwhile, other INGOs’ strategies are similarly shaped by their status: they are free to issue harsh condemnations and advance radical proposals, but these generally get ignored. Stroup and Wong offer the first exploration of the vast differences among INGOs in their authority, and then explore how status shapes INGO strategies as they seek to influence states, corporations, and one another.


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