Abstrakt
The objective of this paper is to analyse to what extent the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in the sphere of environment may be relevant for the purposes of corporate responsibility. For the elucidation of the main research question, the author will first elaborate on the environmental standards under the European Convention on Human Rights using the methods of both analysis and description.
Second, the article will expose on the legal standing of businesses under this treaty. Third, the applicability of the ECHR standards on the protection of the environment to business enterprises will be discussed.
As a result of the applied methods and treatments, the author comes to conclusions that the certain principles established by the practice of the ECtHR are relevant also for business entities and may serve as guidelines for their activities concerning the environment. Given that the provisions of the UNGP in this regard are not sufficiently detailed, the norms of the ECHR help to fill in the gap in the instructions given to businesses.
Although the ECHR is only a regional human rights treaty, the study shows that the standards established therein may be applied universally.