Category Archives: Fundamental or Human Rights
Marco Pasqua, ‘Adapting Private International Law to Anti-SLAPP Litigation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’
ABSTRACT Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) are legal actions – most commonly based on defamation, privacy or related claims – brought not to genuinely assert or protect a right, but to prevent, restrict or penalise public participation. They are typically characterised by an imbalance of power between the parties, the use of procedural tactics […]
Cory Andrews, ‘Public Nuisance and the First Amendment: Free-Speech Defenses to an Expanding Tort’
ABSTRACT Public nuisance – an ancient common-law tort traditionally limited to discrete, localized interferences with rights common to the public – has undergone a dramatic expansion. Once confined to tangible obstructions of highways, contamination of waterways, or disorderly houses amenable to abatement, the doctrine now serves as a vehicle for private plaintiffs and governments to […]
Klaus Beiter, ‘Copyright and the Right to Education: Towards Balance? – Or Copyright’s Capture of the Right to Education?’
ABSTRACT The chapter – appearing in the Fifth Edition of Paul Torreman’s standard work on Intellectual Property Law and Human Rights – focuses on the subject of establishing conformity between copyright and access to learning materials under the right to education. It first looks at the provisions of international copyright law designed to facilitate the […]
Shuxin Zhang, ‘Private data in safe hands? Evolving privacy concerns in the digital era’
ABSTRACT Privacy is widely recognised as a fundamental human right in many democratic societies, as enshrined in instruments such as Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This paper examines the enforcement landscape of data protection in the United Kingdom, with particular attention to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). […]
Morten Kinander, ‘Cyclopes on the Bench: Courts, Climate Litigation, and the Structural Limits of Adjudication’
ABSTRACT Climate litigation is transforming human rights from shields against state power into swords compelling state action. Courts across Europe, in Urgenda, Neubauer, and KlimaSeniorinnen, have ordered governments to intensify climate policy, treating inadequate emissions reductions as violations of fundamental rights. The pattern has since reached the apex of international adjudication, in the International Court […]
Patrick Parenteau, ‘SLAPP vs SLAPP-BACK: The Seismic Greenpeace Verdict and the Future of Environmental Protests’
ABSTRACT In March 2025, a nine-person jury in Morton County, North Dakota awarded a verdict of almost $667M against Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace Foundation and Greenpeace International (hereafter, Greenpeace unless otherwise noted) and in favor of Energy Transfer LP and Dakota Access LLC, developers of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Despite Greenpeace’s claim that the […]
Proposed anti-SLAPP legislation for England and Wales
For commentary on this bill see: Two Private Members’ Bills in both houses place Anti-SLAPP reform firmly on the parliamentary agenda (UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition, 16 June) Parallel legislation to tackle SLAPPs introduced in both Houses of Parliament (Free Speech Union, 19 June) New front opens in stalled anti-SLAPPs campaign (Law Gazette, 21 June) The Anti-SLAPP […]
Tahera Anwar, ‘The Accountability Paradox: Operational Accountability Beyond the Violator Model’
ABSTRACT Traditional human rights law operates on a foundational assumption: a rights violation implies an identifiable violator. Torture has a torturer. Arbitrary detention has a detaining authority. Discrimination has a discriminator. Accountability follows the chain of causation. This paper argues that contemporary governance has disrupted this assumption. In fragmented, multi-agency systems – where authority is […]
Calum MacLaren, ‘Common and civil law approaches to tort-based corporate climate litigation: A comparative case law review’
ABSTRACT As corporate climate litigation intensifies globally, litigants consistently encounter the same procedural and substantive hurdles: duty of care, standing and causation. Success in navigating these hurdles has been sporadic, and most existing inquiry has sought to understand these trends according to geographical or case-type lenses. This article proposes a different framework, contending that grouping […]
‘KlimaSeniorinnen and its Progeny: The Beginning of a Stock-Taking’
On 9 April 2024, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered rulings in three climate-change cases, thus becoming the first international court to establish a right to be protected from the effects of climate change. The leading judgment was Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v Switzerland; a case brought against […]