15 April 2025
Fashion Upcycling and the Human Right to a Healthy Environment
With new collections each season, the fashion industry produces a highly problematic fashion garbage heap every year. Circular economy projects seeking to produce “new” garments by reworking second hand and unsold fashion items have particular societal value against this background. Evidently, legal solutions that support fashion reuse have particular relevance in the light of these goals. Continue reading >>
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12 April 2025
Fast Fashion, Slow Transition
In the new ultra-fast fashion era, garment production cycles are accelerated to new heights, while the quality of the garments deteriorates. Key characteristics of the industry are its reliance on cheap manufacturing, overconsumption and short-lived garment use. This blog post will set out who is responsible for the protection of human rights from climate change within the textile industry. In a second step, this blog post aims to analyse the EU Strategy, focusing on the intersection between environmental and social rights in the textile industry. Continue reading >>
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07 April 2025
Why Recognizing the Right to a Healthy Environment Would Strengthen the Environmental Human Rights Framework under the European Convention on Human Rights
The ECtHR lacks a mandate for general measures aimed at redressing or preventing environmental harm as such. Only the introduction of the environment as the object of human rights protection, through the Right to a Healthy Environment, could trigger the necessary conceptual shift and legitimise the Court and the CoE Committee of Ministers to require member States to take measures such as mitigation of environmental risks and ecological redress. Continue reading >>
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04 April 2025
The Status of the Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment Under Customary International Law
The recognition of a right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment remains contested under customary international law. Some view recent UN resolutions as evidence of its emergence, while others argue they merely reinforce existing obligations. The Human Rights Council and General Assembly have acknowledged this right, but states differ on its legal impact. As the International Court of Justice examines the issue, the focus is shifting from recognition to implementation, with institutions now working to monitor and enforce environmental human rights. Continue reading >>03 April 2025
Intellectual Property and the Human Right to a Healthy Environment
With the effects of climate change escalating, there has been a notable increase in discussions about the, at first glance, not obvious impact of IP protection on environmental sustainability. At the same time, considerations of human and fundamental rights in the context of IP protection are increasingly shaping the legal discourse. Given these two major trends in IP law – growing attention to environmental sustainability as well as to human and fundamental rights – it seems that the time is ripe to explore what the human right to a healthy environment might mean for IP. Continue reading >>
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25 March 2025
Manufacturing Integration
Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta recently concluded that Denmark’s so-called Ghetto Law constitutes direct discrimination based on ethnic origin and hence a violation of the Race Equality Directive. This blog highlights the harmful role of the integration narrative underlying the law and other coercive measures addressed towards “non-Western” Danes and non-Danes and the broader implications of the present case for challenging stereotypes embedded in integration policies and practices. Continue reading >>
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21 February 2025
The Claim of Hybrid Attacks
At the European Union’s external borders, migrants are being instrumentalized in geopolitical conflicts, as seen in cases before the European Court of Human Rights concerning pushbacks at the EU-Belarus border. Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania justify these measures as responses to a “hybrid war,” while critics warn against eroding non-refoulement protections. The Court’s ruling will be crucial in defining the balance between state security and human rights. Continue reading >>17 February 2025
A Sisyphean Task?
Ethiopia finds itself at a critical juncture in its attempt to embark on a journey of confronting its violent past through a multi-prong transitional justice process. Despite notable progress in drafting the legal frameworks and the establishment of necessary institutional structures to set the wheels of transitional justice in motion, public trust in the current process remains fragile. The government's current crack down on civil society organizations and media freedom is likely to exacerbate this problem. Continue reading >>
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14 February 2025
Rethinking Remembrance
Can commemorative practices such as memorials, museums, and national remembrance days effectively transform attitudes and behaviours to deter violence? Despite the proliferation of memorialisation practices globally, their tangible impact on reducing violence or fostering reconciliation and healing is often assumed rather than rigorously demonstrated. Continue reading >>
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13 February 2025
Connective and Disjunctive Memory
Digital memory scholars highlight a shift to “connective memory”, which connects individuals to a multitudes of users as opposed to the memory of a collective. Additionally, the importance of forgetting has become an essential demand of participants in digital communication, which leads to the importance of understanding “disjunctive memory” as well. Undermining the hopes for progressing empathy and understanding in the digital age, its disruptive effects materialize in Russian digital media discourse in the 2020s. Continue reading >>
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