The European Court of Human Rights' New Business and Human Rights Guide: What It Reveals About Strasbourg's Approach to Corporate Activity

The European Court of Human Rights has published its first dedicated Guide on Business and Human Rights, bringing together a large body of jurisprudence that has developed across property disputes, environmental litigation, labour law, corporate governance, freedom of expression, privacy, sanctions, taxation, licensing and access to justice. The publication does not establish new legal principles. Its value lies elsewhere. By assembling these authorities within a single document, the Court provides a clearer picture of how business activity is increasingly being examined through the lens of Convention rights.

The Guide opens with a simple observation. There is "no provision in the Convention and its Protocols which explicitly refers to business operations, companies, enterprises or commercial undertakings." Yet, according to the Court, "in practice nearly every Convention Article is relevant to the rights of business entities."

That observation accurately reflects the evolution of Strasbourg jurisprudence. Many of the Court's most significant cases involving businesses were not originally understood as business and human rights disputes. They arose in the context of expropriation claims, shareholder disputes, workplace conflicts, environmental litigation and regulatory enforcement. Read together, however, they reveal a Court increasingly concerned with the legal frameworks through which states regulate economic activity and manage conflicts between private rights and public interests.

Corporate Personality and the Limits of Shareholder Rights

The Guide begins with a question that has occupied the Court for decades: when can shareholders invoke Convention rights in respect of measures directed at a company?

The leading authority remains Agrotexim and Others v. Greece. The applicants were majority shareholders in a brewery that had entered liquidation following a dispute with public authorities. They argued that actions directed against the company had effectively harmed them as shareholders. The Court rejected the application. Economic losses suffered by shareholders do not automatically make them victims for the purposes of Article 34. The Court held that disregarding separate corporate personality is justified only in "exceptional circumstances."

That principle has remained central to the Court's jurisprudence. The Guide traces its application through a series of later authorities culminating in Albert and Others v. Hungary. The Court accepts that exceptions may arise where a company functions essentially as the vehicle of a single individual or where it is impossible for the company itself to seek protection through its lawful organs. Outside those circumstances, the distinction between company and shareholder remains fundamental.

The issue arises most frequently in insolvency proceedings, banking disputes and cases involving state intervention in corporate affairs. It is also becoming increasingly relevant in sanctions litigation, where restrictive measures may affect both companies and their beneficial owners. The Guide confirms that Strasbourg remains reluctant to allow shareholders to bypass corporate personality simply because the value of their investment has been affected.

The Court adopts a similarly functional approach when determining whether an entity qualifies as a "non-governmental organisation" entitled to bring an application. State ownership is not necessarily decisive. In Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines v. Turkey, a wholly state-owned shipping company was permitted to invoke Convention protections because it operated under ordinary company law and exercised no governmental authority. By contrast, in Ljubljanska banka d.d. v. Croatia, the Court concluded that a state-controlled bank functioned too closely with governmental structures to qualify as a non-governmental organisation.

These decisions illustrate a recurring feature of Strasbourg jurisprudence. The Court rarely relies on formal labels alone. It examines how institutions function in practice.

Environmental Protection, Industrial Activity and Positive Obligations

Environmental disputes occupy a substantial portion of the Guide. That is unsurprising. Some of the Court's most important discussions of positive obligations emerged from cases involving industrial pollution and hazardous activities.

The starting point remains López Ostra v. Spain. The applicant lived approximately twelve metres from a waste-treatment facility that generated serious odours, fumes and environmental impacts. The Court accepted that severe environmental pollution may interfere with private and family life under Article 8 even where it does not create a serious threat to health. According to the Court, environmental conditions may affect an individual's well-being sufficiently to prevent effective enjoyment of the home.

The Guide places López Ostra within a broader line of authority that includes Fadeyeva v. Russia, Dubetska and Others v. Ukraine and Cordella and Others v. Italy.

In Fadeyeva, the applicant lived within a sanitary security zone surrounding a major steel plant. The Court examined whether the authorities had taken adequate measures to protect residents from industrial emissions that exceeded domestic environmental standards. The judgment focused not on the conduct of the plant operator alone but on the adequacy of the state's regulatory response.

A similar approach appears in Dubetska, which concerned environmental contamination caused by coal mining activities. The Court examined whether authorities had addressed the risks posed to nearby residents. In Cordella, the Court considered the long-running pollution problems associated with the Ilva steelworks in Taranto and concluded that authorities had failed to take sufficient measures to protect affected populations.

Across these cases, a common pattern is visible. The Court does not treat environmental disputes simply as conflicts between private companies and affected communities. Instead, it examines whether states have established and enforced legal frameworks capable of protecting Convention rights from foreseeable environmental harms.

That approach has now become increasingly relevant beyond traditional pollution disputes. Human rights due diligence legislation, supply-chain obligations, climate transition requirements and sustainability-related disclosure regimes are all built around questions of governance, oversight and risk management. The environmental jurisprudence collected in the Guide reflects similar concerns.

Climate Litigation's Place Within the Convention System

The Guide does not contain a separate chapter dedicated to climate change litigation. The omission is notable. Rather than treating climate cases as a distinct field, the Court integrates them into existing discussions of environmental protection, standing, victim status and procedural rights.

The Guide cites Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland when discussing the threshold requirement under Article 8. It refers to the Grand Chamber's observation that environmental harm must attain a sufficient level of severity before Article 8 becomes applicable. The Guide also relies on KlimaSeniorinnen in its discussion of Article 6. Referring to the Grand Chamber's judgment, it notes that environmental disputes may involve civil rights where domestic law recognises interests linked to life, physical integrity or property.

This treatment places KlimaSeniorinnen firmly within existing Convention doctrine. The judgment appears alongside authorities concerning environmental permitting, pollution control and access to justice. The Guide does not present it as a radical departure from earlier environmental jurisprudence. The same is true of Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others, which appears within the Guide's broader catalogue of environmental cases.

For practitioners, this may be one of the publication's most significant observations. Climate litigation is increasingly being absorbed into established Convention principles concerning positive obligations, procedural fairness and environmental protection. The Court appears less interested in constructing a separate body of climate doctrine than in adapting existing jurisprudence to climate-related harms.

Regulatory Discretion and the Requirement of Legal Certainty

One of the strongest themes running through the Guide concerns legal certainty. The Court repeatedly emphasises that interferences with Convention rights must be "in accordance with the law". A legal basis alone is insufficient. Rules must be accessible, foreseeable and sufficiently precise to protect against arbitrary decision-making.

This principle appears across a wide range of commercial disputes. In Copland v. United Kingdom, a public educational institution relied on a broadly drafted statutory provision permitting it to do "anything necessary or expedient" for educational purposes. The Court found that this provision could not provide a sufficient legal basis for monitoring an employee's communications. The statutory language was too general and lacked adequate safeguards.

In Glas Nadezhda EOOD and Anatoliy Elenkov v. Bulgaria, the Court examined a broadcasting licensing regime and identified deficiencies in the regulatory framework governing licence allocation. The case turned largely on the breadth of administrative discretion and the absence of adequate procedural guarantees.

The Guide repeatedly returns to a principle articulated elsewhere in the Court's jurisprudence: discretionary powers should not be expressed as "an unfettered power". The significance of this line of authority extends well beyond media regulation or employee privacy. Similar questions arise whenever public authorities exercise broad powers affecting commercial activity. Licensing decisions, environmental permits, sanctions, banking supervision, competition enforcement and market regulation all raise issues concerning predictability, transparency and procedural safeguards.

Property Rights and the Distribution of Public Burdens

The longest sections of the Guide concern Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Historically, property rights have been the principal avenue through which companies entered Strasbourg litigation. The Guide surveys a large body of jurisprudence involving expropriation, taxation, banking regulation, rent control, licensing, compensation schemes and restrictions on economic activity.

Several judgments stand out. In James and Others v. United Kingdom, the Court accepted that extensive interferences with property may be justified where they pursue legitimate social objectives. The judgment remains one of the leading authorities on the state's margin of appreciation in economic and social policy. In Hutten-Czapska v. Poland, however, the Court concluded that rent-control legislation imposed a disproportionate burden on property owners. The problem was not the objective of protecting tenants. The difficulty lay in requiring a limited group to absorb the costs of addressing a broader social problem.

The same concern appears in Vistiņš and Perepjolkins v. Latvia, which examined compensation levels in an expropriation dispute, and in East West Alliance Limited v. Ukraine, which involved state interference with commercial property interests.

These cases reveal an important feature of Strasbourg proportionality analysis. The Court frequently accepts extensive regulation of economic activity. What attracts closer scrutiny is the distribution of burdens created by that regulation. Measures become vulnerable where a narrow category of individuals or businesses is required to bear a disproportionate share of the costs associated with achieving a public objective. That question is likely to become increasingly significant as governments pursue policies related to decarbonisation, biodiversity protection, energy transition and industrial transformation.

Employment Relationships and Workplace Rights

The employment chapter illustrates the extent to which Convention rights now shape workplace governance. The Guide devotes considerable attention to Bărbulescu v. Romania, the Grand Chamber judgment concerning employee monitoring. The applicant had been dismissed after his employer monitored workplace communications. The Court concluded that domestic courts had failed adequately to protect his Article 8 rights when assessing the lawfulness of the monitoring measures.

Particularly influential is the Court's observation that workplace policies cannot reduce social life in the workplace to "zero". Even where employers prohibit personal use of communication systems, employees retain privacy interests requiring protection.

The Guide also discusses employee speech and whistleblowing through cases such as Palomo Sánchez and Others v. Spain and Eweida and Others v. United Kingdom.

These cases show that workplace rights are assessed through a balancing exercise rather than rigid rules. Employer interests in loyalty, discipline and operational effectiveness must be weighed against employees' rights to expression, privacy and religious freedom. Context remains central to the analysis.

The resulting jurisprudence has become increasingly relevant as employers deploy artificial intelligence systems, algorithmic management tools and more sophisticated forms of workplace surveillance.

Access to Justice and Procedural Rights

The Guide's discussion of Article 6 may ultimately prove one of its most practical sections.

Commercial disputes frequently turn on procedural questions rather than substantive rights. The Court's jurisprudence reflects this reality. The Guide discusses authorities ranging from Dombo Beheer B.V. v. the Netherlands to more recent commercial cases concerning arbitration, tendering procedures and regulatory decision-making.

Particularly noteworthy is the Court's recognition that procedural rights may exist even where no substantive entitlement is guaranteed. In Mirovni Inštitut v. Slovenia, the Court accepted that although the applicant possessed no right to win a public tender, it nevertheless possessed a right to the lawful and correct adjudication of the tendering process.

That distinction appears repeatedly throughout Strasbourg jurisprudence. Access to justice often depends less on the existence of a substantive right than on whether domestic law creates a legal process whose integrity itself attracts Convention protection. The same logic increasingly appears in environmental litigation, climate litigation and disputes concerning public participation in regulatory decision-making.

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The Guide is presented as a reference document. It serves that purpose well. More importantly, however, it reveals how the Court itself now understands the relationship between economic activity and Convention rights.

Environmental protection, corporate governance, labour relations, property rights, privacy, media regulation and procedural fairness appear throughout the publication as interconnected subjects rather than isolated areas of law. The common thread running through the jurisprudence is a concern with the legal frameworks through which states organise and regulate economic activity.

For lawyers advising businesses, the publication offers more than a summary of existing authorities. It provides a map of the issues that increasingly define business-related litigation before the Strasbourg Court. Those issues extend well beyond traditional human rights disputes. They now include environmental governance, climate-related claims, regulatory design, workplace monitoring, procedural fairness and the allocation of economic burdens associated with public policy objectives.