Category Archives: Fundamental or Human Rights
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 […]
Vanhala and Hartz, ‘Climate Change Loss, Law, and Society’
ABSTRACT Losses linked to climate change impacts are already manifesting around the world, and their consequences will compound and cascade over time. This article maps different disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to recognizing, defining, assessing, and addressing climate change loss and damage. Drawing on the current literature, the article identifies some of the characteristics of climate […]
Call for Papers: ‘Theorising the New Age of Environmental Human Rights Law’: Lancaster Castle, 17-18 September 2026
The 2020s are becoming a pivotal decade for international environmental human rights law. Almost every major international human rights body has recently pronounced on the relationship between human rights and climate change (or is due to do so shortly). At the same time, there has been a rapid growth in theorising about the philosophical foundations […]
Juan Manuel Klein, ‘Climate Change and Separation of Powers in European Human Rights Law: Why KlimaSeniorinnen has been Met with a Vigorous Separation of Power Criticism’
ABSTRACT While the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in KlimaSeniorinnen v Switzerland has been hailed by many as a landmark in climate change and human rights litigation, the response by Switzerland and many intervening parties has been less favorable. For instance, the Swiss legislative has been very critical in its review […]
Zoya Yasmine, ‘Human rights and intellectual property at crossroads’
Human Rights and Intellectual Property Before the European Courts, A Case Commentary on the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights, Elena Izyumenko and Christophe Geiger, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025. IP is often studied in a silo, both in terms of the field of law and its individual […]
Christopher Essert, Property Law in the Society of Equals (Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies)
Owning the Problem: Can a Property System Ever Rise beyond Its Defects? (Shelly Kreiczer-Levy) The Man of Property: Discussion of Property Law in a Society of Equals (Nick Sage) Property and the Sources of Inequality: A Comment on Christopher Essert, Property Law in the Society of Equals (2024) (Avihay Dorfman) Property in the Society of […]
Helen Rodway, ‘A human rights framing of cohabitation reform’
ABSTRACT Despite the exponential rise in the number of couples cohabiting, across Europe, cohabitants are unable to access comprehensive legal protections. To strengthen calls for reform, this paper advocates for the adoption of a human rights framing and traces its potential development. It begins with an analysis of the current discourse and offers an explanation […]