4 - Countering the Dominant Frame

Summary

To counter the dominant anthropocentric and synergistic framing of the relationship between environmental protection and human rights, this chapter focuses on the conflicting dimension of this relation. It maps the main types of conflicts induced from a case-law analysis of regional human rights courts. Conflicts between nature conservation policies (through the creation of protected areas) and the rights of indigenous peoples or cultural minorities living on such lands have been deplored for long, as also instantiated through the numerous cases decided by the Inter-American and African human rights Courts and Commissions. Less has been said, however, about conflicts between animal welfare concerns and cultural or religious freedoms of certain communities; conflicts between landscape preservation policies and land ownership, including by vulnerable groups such as Roma people; and conflicts between energy policies and the rights to adequate living conditions and to property. Strasbourg and Luxembourg judges are increasingly occupied with such issues. This innovative typology of normative conflicts between environmental protection laws and human rights offers new empirical, theoretical and doctrinal insights to understand the nature and the extent of the conflicting dimension of the relationship between environmental protection and human rights.