Andrea Saccucci scores again in Strasbourg Court over large-scale industrial pollution
With a judgment issued on 6 May 2025 regarding application no. 52854/18, L.F. and others v. Italy, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the claim brought by associate Professor Andrea Saccucci on behalf of 153 citizens residing in Irno Valley, Campania, concerning the severe pollution caused by the “Fonderie Pisano” industrial plant. Specifically, the Court found that Italy violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to respect for private and family life, due to its failure to adopt all necessary measures to ensure effective protection of the applicants’ health from the highly harmful emissions produced by the foundry.
Originally classified as an industrial zone in 1963, the area was later allocated for residential use in 2006, conditional upon the foundry’s relocation- a requirement that was never fulfilled. The plant continued to operate despite the new urban planning and scientific evidence confirming its harmful impact on the environment and public health. In particular, the SPES epidemiological study (“Study of Exposure in the Susceptible Population”) and analyses of local residents revealed concentrations of heavy metals notably above average and established a causal link between the pollution’s effects on the population and the foundry’s activities (judgment, §§ 121, 166).
The Court found that, between 2008 and 2016, the plant caused serious pollution, and the affected population was not adequately informed of the risks associated with remaining in the area (§ 161). Furthermore, despite the area’s new urban classification, the authorities failed to take effective measures between 2008 and 2016 to protect the applicants’ right to private life (§ 162). For the period after 2016, the Court considered the efforts to reduce the foundry’s environmental impact insufficient to compensate for the prolonged exposure endured by the local population (§ 165), concluding that the Italian authorities failed to strike an adequate balance between competition interests, thus not meeting their positive obligations under Article 8 of the ECHR (§§ 170–71).
As a preliminary matter, the Court examined the applicants’ complaints only from the perspective of Article 8 of the ECHR, finding it unnecessary to address them separately under Article 2 (right to life), primarily due to the distinction articulated in the 30 January 2025 judgment, Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy, concerning “Terra dei Fuochi”. This case established that Article 2 of the ECHR protection does not apply when the pollution originates from “a single, specifically identified source affected a limited geographic area”. The reasonableness of such a distinctive criterion, based on the manner in which pollution is produced and on the geographical extent of its effects is rather debatable, as pointed out by Judge Serghides in his partially dissenting opinion (“one may wonder: does it really matter whether the present environmental case concerned ‘a single, identified, circumscribed source of pollution or activity causing it, and a more or less limited geographical area’ (…)? The fact that alleged violations of different Articles of the Convention stem from a common factual source cannot, in itself, justify examining the complaints exclusively under a single provision”).
Furthermore, while recognizing that the prolonged exposure of the applicants to the harmful substances produced by the foundry made them more vulnerable to various potentially lethal diseases, the Court concluded that there was no “certain” evidence that the pollution of the foundry had caused the specific health damages claimed by some of the applicants (§ 118). This conclusion is unconvincing not only in light of the documentation produced in court, (including the technical advice mentioned in § 8 of the judgment), but also considering the different approach now established in cases in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (to which the same Court referred in the Cannavacciuolo case, § 185). According to the jurisprudence, in the case of serious and widespread forms of pollution, the causal link must be evaluated more flexibly, and it is unnecessary to prove “a direct causal link between the pathology contracted by the victims and their exposure to the pollutants” (judgment of 27 November 2023 La Oroya Population v. Peru, esp. § 204).
Finally, while recognizing the Italian State’s freedom to choose the means to execute the judgment, pursuant to Article 46, the Court suggested the adoption of a series of general measures aimed at restoring, as much as possible, the situation the applicants would have been in had the violation not occurred (§ 182), including in particular, effective management of environmental risks related to the foundry’s activity and its relocation, as already provided for by the municipal urban plan of 2006 (§ 183).
The Court awarded the applicants €8,700 in legal costs but found that the acknowledgment of the violation itself constituted adequate just satisfaction for non-pecuniary damages, consistent with prior similar cases (judgment of 19 October 2023, Locascia and Others, § 167, concerning waste management in Campania and the 19 January 2019, Cordella and Others v. Italy , concerning pollution from the former Ilva steelworks in Taranto).
The outcome is controversial, especially in light of the different approach taken by the Court in the recent 30 January 2025 judgment, Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy, concerning “Terra dei Fuochi”, which, having identified a violation of Article 2 of the ECHR (instead of Article 8, due to the more widespread, not source-specific nature of the pollution), expressly reserved the decision on compensation pending further review (§ 508). Also on this point, Judge Serghides disagreed with the majority’s position, considering that the suffering endured by the applicants due to the persistent and serious pollution and the risks to which they are exposed deserved monetary compensation. In this regard, he referred to some of his previous separate opinions in which he criticized the Court’s practice of denying any form of economic redress in favor of the victims (in particular, in the dissenting opinion to the 26 September 2023 judgment, Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Turkey , and in the partly dissenting joint opinion with Judge Felici in the 15 March 2022 Grand Chamber judgment, Grzęda v. Poland [GC]).
Hopefully, questions about the application of Article 2 and Article 41 of the ECHR in large-scale, health-threatening polluting activities will be subject to further review and clearer definition by the Grand Chamber of the Court.
