NUISANCE, PLANNING AND HUMAN RIGHTS: THROWING AWAY THE EMERGENCY PARACHUTE

THE idea that forms of legal control should not overlap has a considerable history. In the tort of negligence, for example, judges have long been fond of saying that the duty of care should not extend to situations covered by, for example, contract law, procedural law, financial regulation and human rights. Similar issues arise in the tort of nuisance, particularly potential overlaps with environmental regulation, especially planning controls. The problem the idea raises is a difficult one: overlapping liability adds to the complexity of the law and risks public and professional incomprehension; but it can also help to prevent deserving cases slipping through the net by adding an element of what engineers call "redundancy".