A matter of life and breath for Ella – the formally acknowledged threat of air pollution as a breach of the right to life

Pearson, John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0164-9499 (2025) A matter of life and breath for Ella – the formally acknowledged threat of air pollution as a breach of the right to life. Legal Studies. ISSN 0261-3875

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Abstract

The death of Ella Kissi-Debrah in 2013 will be forever notable as the first instance in the United Kingdom of air pollution being recorded as contributing to the death of an individual. Whilst in itself a monumental shift in consideration of air pollution and the impact on human health, the recording by the coroner of Ella’s death as having been contributed to by air pollution has significant human rights implications. This piece considers the circumstances surrounding both Ella’s death and the report of the coroner and connects these to decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. It presents the argument that the failure to address a known risk to life presented by air pollution could constitute a breach of the right to life protected by Article 2 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR). Cases in which environmental conditions are found by the Court to have breached Article 2 are rare, but this paper contends that the formal acknowledgement of the threat of air pollution as a result of Ella’s death means that failure to address it meets this threshold.