Disconnections of Energy as a Violation of International Human Rights Law

Abstract

In Europe, millions of people are affected by disconnections of energy supply annually. For example, looking just at Germany, Spain and France, approximately 328.000 German households were disconnected from energy supplies in 2016, whilst in Spain more than 900.000 persons were estimated to have suffered at least one instance of energy supply cuts due to financial difficulties in the same year. In France, about 280.000 consumers were affected by electricity cuts in 2018. Another 118.000 and 273.500 consumers respectively saw their gas supplies disconnected, or their power supply reduced. Regardless of how to calculate the number of people that hide behind these figures exactly, it is safe to say that these three countries represent at least 2 million persons losing access to energy per year. These high numbers of disconnections have started to attract the scrutiny of international human rights supervisory bodies under human rights treaties. The aim of this contribution is to highlight the current state of international (United Nations) human rights law on the topic of energy supply disconnections, for there is growing evidence that human rights bodies qualify disconnections as a violation of human rights law, and support that they must be avoided, prevented or prohibited, especially in case of inability to pay for necessary services.

Keywords: energy access; energy poverty; international human rights law; right to energy; disconnections; United Nations; European Union

JEL Classification: K33