One of the vital problems of our time is the global environmental crisis, which naturally brought to the fore in world jurisprudence the issue of formation and development of the concept of ensuring and protecting the human right to an environment safe for life and health.

The purpose of the proposed article is a general theoretical and philosophical-legal analysis of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the protection of environmental human rights.

Thanks to the decisions of the Court in “ecological” cases, the provisions of Articles 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14 and Art. 1 of Protocol No. 1 was filled with a number of new meanings, which proves the “living” nature of the Convention on the Protection of Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Today, this trend continues to develop in, so to speak, geometric progression, covering more and more aspects of the protection of fundamental human rights.

At the same time, from the point of view of determining the philosophical and legal basis of the views of the ECtHR judges, it is important to emphasize the implementation of the well-known universal formula (and “ecological” cases are no exception) regarding the search for “a fair balance between the competing interests of an individual and society”. The direct recognition in the principle of “fair balance” of the importance of the community’s interests gives grounds not only to assert the consonance of the Court’s approaches with the postulates of liberal communitarianism, but also to assume their peculiar embodiment in legal practice.

It should also be borne in mind that in the modern world, environmental problems are global, their consequences are widespread and ultimately affect the interests of the entire society, all of humanity (including future generations).

This can be particularly vividly illustrated by the example of the so-called “climate” cases, the first of which, as noted, are already under consideration by the Strasbourg Court. We think that consideration of these cases can become a turning point, a kind of “bifurcation point”, after the successful passage of which the concept of environmental rights in the practice of the Court has a chance to move to a new, unprecedented level of development.

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