Development of the right to environment and its place in ECHR decisions

Environmental problems and degradation have serious effects all over the world. It is seen that it has reached dimensions that cannot be ignored, especially in areas such as economy, social life, law and human rights. Combating this situation, which is largely caused by human activities, has become a global agenda item, especially in recent years. Undoubtedly, individuals are a part of the environment in which they live. Environmental problems, especially environmental pollution and climate change, make it difficult for individuals to live a life in accordance with human dignity. The importance of the right to environment, which is one of the third generation human rights, has increased with the increasing acceleration of environmental concerns since the half of the 20th century. The process, which started at the global level with the acceptance of the interaction between humans and the environment at the 1972 Stockholm Conference, continued in 2022 when the United Nations clearly stated that living in a healthy environment is a human right. At the regional level, the perspective of the European Court of Human Rights, which is accepted as the most effective mechanism for the protection of human rights due to its sanctioning power, has a key importance. Right to environment and environmental information, participation and application rights, which are tools of the right to environment, are not included in the European Convention on Human Rights and its additional protocols. However, the ECHR examines the applications for the right to environment indirectly by associating them with the rights in the Convention.. In this study, the criteria that the ECHR associates the right to environment with and the criteria it uses when evaluating the allegations of violations are discussed in this study. The decisive case-laws aimed at understanding the Court's point of view are discussed in detail.