Pollution: the European Court of Human Rights condemns Italy

Rome, 7 November 2023 – «A historic sentence, a new and fundamental step for the definitive recognition of the right to be born and live in a healthy environment». Comments like this President Consulcesi Massimo Tortorella the appeal presented before the Court of Strasbourg by some Italian citizens which concluded in recent days with Italy’s condemnation.

With this ruling, continues Tortorella, the European Court is telling us something innovative and very important: «we must not wait to get sick or even die of cancer or other diseases related to pollution, but we have the right to live in an environment healthy now; and if this does not happen, the responsibility lies mainly with the institutions.”
pronounces it (ECtHR, Section I, 19 October 2023 n. 35648/10) refers to the appeal presented by residents of some cities in Campania affected since 1994 by a serious waste emergency which had lasted over time, causing serious inconvenience to the entire population of the areas concerned.
«Concrete, strong and clear messages continue to arrive from Europe to national institutions, called to assume the responsibility of guaranteeing every citizen the fundamental right to live in a healthy environment – ​​continues the President of one of the main legal networks with more than twenty-year period on community violations – It was not necessary, to condemn Italy, to demonstrate the existence of damages in the specific case, but numerous and authoritative scientific studies were brought to support the appellants’ thesis which highlighted all the potential dangers that prolonged exposure to polluting factors can cause”.
The path that the European institutions have taken to make the environmental protection policies implemented by the States increasingly effective is therefore clear. This sentence marks a fundamental moment in attributing the responsibilities of the institutions, even if no concrete damage to health is found. The institutions are, in fact, obliged to guarantee and protect the quality of life of all citizens.
«A positive message also comes from Europe for our 600 thousand applicants for the Aria Pulita collective action. It is no longer just a question of obtaining compensation for the time in which one was exposed to polluted air, but also of inducing institutions to implement policies aimed at making the environment in which we live healthier” concludes Tortorella.

To join the collective action, it is sufficient to demonstrate, through a historical residence certificate, that you have resided from 2008-2018 in one or more of the 3,384 municipalities and Italian cities eligible for the Aria Pulita collective action and the same ones for which the European Court of Justice fined Italy for violating the threshold values ​​for fine particles (Pm10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). In total there are over 40 million people who can request, through the legal initiative of Consulcesi, compensation for breathing unhealthy air.
To find out if and how to participate in the collective action, Consulcesi makes the Aria Pulita website available: www.aria-pulita.it.