This guest blog article from Dr Hannah Russell and Ben Christman ¹ is the second and final part of a series of blog articles that examines the relationship between fuel poverty and human rights.

…overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.²

1. Introduction

Human rights law provides a set of basic rules designed to protect human dignity. Poverty (and fuel poverty) can affect the enjoyment of several human rights protections including the right to life, freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, adequate housing, food and health. These are found in international, regional and domestic legal instruments with snazzy titles like the European Convention on Human Rights 1952 (ECHR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966 (ICESCR) – although anathema to some parts of the political spectrum, these rights are an important part of the UK’s legal system. This post provides an introduction to the relationship between human rights and fuel poverty in the UK, focussing on the rights to life and housing.³ Read the rest of this entry »

1. Hannah Russell ([email protected]) has recently completed doctoral research at the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast entitled ‘The Right to Life under Article 2 of the ECHR in light of European Conflicts’. She has also been contracted by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to assist its work on poverty and the right to an adequate standard of living. Ben Christman ([email protected]) is a third year PhD candidate in the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast. His research examines legal responses to fuel poverty in the UK from an energy justice perspective. ↩

2. Nelson Mandela, Make Poverty History Rally, 3rd February 2005, London. ↩

3. This post draws from B Christman and H Russell, ‘Readjusting the Political Thermostat: Fuel Poverty and Human Rights in the UK’ Journal of Human Rights in the Commonwealth (2015) – forthcoming. This is the second of two posts on fuel poverty and human rights – see ‘The energy bill of rights – too little, too much or just about right?’. ↩

The following blog article by Harriet Thomson aims to provide a very brief overview of the discourse on fuel poverty and energy poverty at the European scale, based on the frequency of key terms appearing in official policy documents from 2001 through to the present day.

A core part of my PhD research on EU fuel poverty is a content analysis of EU policy documents. The first stage of this particular aspect of my research seeks to summarise the fragmented European fuel poverty policy framework that Member States are obliged to operate within, followed by an analysis of the European discourse concerning fuel poverty and energy poverty. Ultimately, the research seeks to understand if all the main EU institutions acknowledge fuel/energy poverty, and whether there are any differences or overlaps between the discourses of each institution. For an introduction to the main EU Directives relating to fuel poverty, see my earlier blog post from 2012: Is the EU doing enough? Read the rest of this entry »