Dear All,

We hope that you are well.

We are writing with various updates regarding the recent activities of the Law and Public Health Section of EUPHA (EUPHA-LAW). We hope you find them of interest.

Firstly, we had promised at the EUPHA-LAW Join The Network Meeting in Berlin in November last year to circulate EUPHA-LAW’s activity report for 2022. It is here. Thank you to those of you who attended. We have been able to register new members after this meeting and meet many of you too.

Secondly, please note that EUPHA-LAW will host a conference on Strategic Litigation and Public Health Protection on 15 and 16 June at the University of Liverpool, UK. The event will be hybrid. Litigation intended to promote healthier environments will be at the heart of our discussions, with discussions on climate change, air pollution, food and diets, and cross-cutting themes such as human rights, civil society mobilisation, accountability... Even though the programme is still in development, we can already confirm that the event will be interdisciplinary, policy-facing and international (with colleagues from Europe, the Americas and Africa). We are also keen to promote the participation of early career researchers (ECR). To this effect, we have circulated a call for posters specifically intended for ECR colleagues. It is here, and we would be most grateful if you could circulate within your networks. We have tweeted about it, and it would be great if you could re-tweet this tweet.

More generally, please do not hesitate to contact me directly if you are interested in attending this event: agarde@liverpool.ac.uk.

Thirdly, on 16 March, EUPHA published a statement, which the Section drafted, urging the European Commission to regulate front-of-pack food labelling as it promised it would do in its Farm-to-Fork Strategy (May 2020) and in its Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan (February 2021). This statement is here.

Fourthly, you may be interested in climate litigation at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. As you probably know already, the Section has organised, with partners, a range of webinars and other events on strategic litigation, climate change and public health. We have been asked by Richard Harvey at Greenpeace, who spoke at one of our webinars, to circulate the following information ahead of the hearing in the KlimaSeniorinnen case:

“The 29th March 2023 will go down in history as a milestone in the global fight for climate justice! For the first time ever, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, France, will hold a public hearing on the duties of states, in this case Switzerland, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more ambitiously to protect the lives of at-risk people.

 If the court rules in their favour, their victory will set a landmark precedent for all 46 states of the Council of Europe, with a resounding impact throughout the world!

The Swiss Senior Women for Climate Protection and four individual plaintiffs - widely known as the KlimaSeniorinnen- have battled their government’s indifference for seven years of worsening heat waves that threaten their lives. The Swiss Senior Women established their Association in August 2016 with around 150 senior women as an association of affected people. Today, the association has more than 2,000 members across Switzerland, with an average age of 73. They have now reached the ECtHR. 

Please watch and share their youtube video here, in English, German, French and Italian

And we would also like to share these articles: in English, German and French.”

We hope to welcome Richard at our Strategic Litigation and Public Health conference in Liverpool in June to speak about the case and other related work.

Last but not least, we thank you for your ongoing support. Do spread the word: we always look forward to welcoming new members of like-minded colleagues interested in reflecting on the role that regulation, litigation and human rights can play in promoting better health for all.

We will be in touch again when we have concrete plans to share concerning our contribution to the forthcoming EPH Conference in Dublin. It will take place from 8 to 11 November; information is available at https://ephconference.eu/. We are planning to be there, and we hope to see many of you there too.

Best wishes,

Amandine Garde              and                        Nikhil Gokani

EUPHA-President                                          EUPHA-Vice President

(on behalf of EUPHA-LAW Steering Committee)