8 - International Protection Regimes

Summary

The chapter presents an overview of the case law of other international and regional human rights protection regimes examined for this book. The number of cases is generally limited and the doctrinal position on environmental human rights is therefore less clear and developed when compared to the ECHR. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude with much certainty whether the environmental minimum is compatible with the prevailing doctrinal position under the UN Covenants, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights. Some aspects of the doctrinal approaches are generally supportive of core normative claims and principles of the environmental minimum, while others appear to challenge the framework at least by implication. Nonetheless, if the environmental minimum were consistently applied to approach environmental harm in these systems, it would bring about significant improvements towards a more coherent and principled case law aligned with the normative claims of environmental human rights.