Legal systems typically include one or more legal institutions that address land-related disturbances. As these nuisance or neighbour laws form part of private law, affected individuals can resort to them to take action against noise, odours, dust, pollution and other disturbances via the court system, rather than relying on enforcement by public authorities. Little comparative research has been dedicated to this subject despite its great practical relevance. The project will provide solid comparative and structural foundations for research on nuisance laws, uniting national reports from twelve jurisdictions, structural analyses and further enquiries. Building on the foundations, a special project aim will be to explore the sustainability-related dimensions of nuisance laws, in particular to what extent they do or do not allow neighbours to oppose green energy, railway operations, and naturalised land.

The project is led by Florian Bode and Jonathan Friedrichs (both Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Private International Law in Hamburg), Senara Eggleton (University of Cambridge), David Messner-Kreuzbauer (Institute for European Tort Law, Vienna) and Donal Nolan (University of Oxford).