REGIONAL CONTRACT-LEGAL MECHANISMS IN THE SPHERE OF ENSURING THE RIGHT TO A FAVORABLE ENVIRONMENT
Keywords:
European Convention on Human Rights, Aarhus Convention, African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Escazú Agreement, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, European Court of Human Rights, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, collective environmental rights, extraterritorial obligationsAbstract
The article is dedicated to the study of regional systems for the protection of human rights to a favorable environment, which demonstrate a more progressive and flexible approach compared to the universal level of regulation. Four key models are analyzed: European - based on the judicial interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights and the provisions of the Aarhus Convention; Inter-American - consolidating the autonomous right to a favorable environment and the extraterritorial obligations of states; African - recognizing collective environmental law at the normative level for the first time; and Arab and ASEAN systems. Special attention was paid to judicial practice: precedent decisions on environmental claims, climate and transboundary pollution cases, as well as innovative tools, including the 2018 Escos Agreement, which established unique guarantees for environmental rights defenders. The mechanisms for integrating environmental law at the regional level and the influence of cultural and legal traditions on the formation of diverse approaches to its protection are examined. The author concludes that the diversity of regional practices forms a multitude of protection models that effectively compensate for the gaps in universal regulation. Each of the systems has made its unique contribution to the development of the concept of human environmental rights, ensuring the transition from indirect recognition to their autonomous consolidation and strengthening the transboundary measurement of environmental obligations.
