Report
Italy's 'eco-mafia': Guilty of inertia and omertà
The offense imputed to the Italian state by the ECHR is one of omission: the Court recognized that the Italian authorities had been aware of the pollution problem for many years, but acted with great delay and in an uncoordinated manner.
In its voluminous 180-plus-page ruling, the European Court of Human Rights examined the complaints of 41 Italian citizens and five NGOs operating in the “Terra dei Fuochi” (“Land of Fires”), an area including part of the provinces of Naples and Caserta with a population of about 2.9 million.
Its name comes from illicit practices that began in the 1980s, with the disposal of waste, including from other Italian regions, by criminal organizations (the “Eco-mafia”) and businesses trying to reduce waste disposal costs. These illicit activities included the uncontrolled dumping, burial and incineration of waste, often on private land. The offense imputed to the Italian state by the ECHR is one of omission: the Court recognized that the Italian authorities had been aware of the pollution problem for many years, but acted with great delay and in an uncoordinated manner, without taking adequate preventive and protective measures. This led to a violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which safeguards the right to life.
In particular, the Court pointed out that the authorities had been aware of the problem since at least the early 1990s, thanks to information provided by an informant working with the judicial authorities, C. S., but did not act with the diligence that was due. What happened was that at first, after the first initiatives to map the polluted areas, which were only started in 2013, only fragmented and uncoordinated measures were taken, until an action plan was drafted in 2016 and later updated in 2018, which highlighted the continued lack of coordination. According to the ECHR, a comprehensive and accessible communication strategy informing the public of both the health risks and the actions taken was not implemented, nor was there any effective and coordinated monitoring of all phases of the waste management cycle. In addition, public health investigations were only started with serious delays, so that clean-up and decontamination measures were insufficient and, in addition, the criminal justice system proved to be totally ineffective in identifying and punishing polluters.
A particularly serious aspect highlighted by the Court is the state secrecy imposed on information provided in 1997 by the informant C. S., which concerned instances of illegal burial and disposal of hazardous waste, practices that began at least as early as 1988. This information was declassified only in 2013, 15 years after it was provided. The Court expressed concern about the length and scope of this secrecy, stressing that public health and public safety should not be sacrificed in the name of state secrecy. The Court thus ruled that Italy had violated Article 2 of the Convention for failing to protect the right to life of the residents of the contaminated areas, calling the Terra dei Fuochi phenomenon as a large-scale, systemic problem and urging Italy to take measures to address the problem in an effective and timely manner.
The wide-ranging measures the Court suggested include a range of interventions with the goal of completing the mapping of contaminated areas and making it accessible, including those outside the official perimeters defined by the government; ensuring the continuous monitoring of affected areas; adopting effective clean-up and decontamination measures; implementing a comprehensive and accessible communication strategy that would inform the population about the risks and actions taken; and, finally, ensuring an independent and transparent monitoring mechanism, with the participation of civil society representatives.
The Court also decided to postpone all similar cases against Italy for two years from the date the ruling becomes final, waiting for the adoption of the necessary measures by the Italian government. It should be recalled that the ruling is not final: within three months of the ruling, a party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. In such cases, a panel of five judges will assess whether the case merits further consideration: if the panel decides to refer the case to the Grand Chamber, the Grand Chamber will make a final ruling; otherwise, if the referral request is rejected, the initial ruling becomes final.
The Strasbourg Court's ruling has the nature of a “pilot judgment”: the prologue to a chapter which will unfold far beyond the short term. The Court recognized the complexity of the problem and stressed the importance of a systematic and timely approach to addressing the consequences of the decades of illegal waste disposal.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/colpevoli-di-inerzia-e-di-omerta on 2025-01-31