The fire that broke out in the Bourj Hammoud landfill, seen from the mouth of Nahr al-Mott, on Sept. 12, 2024. (Credit: PHB)
Following the fire at the Burj Hammoud-Jdeideh landfill on Sept. 12, a group of fourteen lawyers filed a complaint against the Lebanese state on Sept. 15 with the Human Rights Council – an intergovernmental body of the United Nations – for “environmental crimes against the Lebanese people.”
In their complaint, the lawyers said that the coastal waste site north of Beirut is located in "a densely populated area with a large number of factories and fuel tanks." According to the plaintiffs, the fire generated "toxic fumes from hazardous substances, such as methane and dioxins, produced by the combustion of organic and non-organic materials, such as plastic."
"Hence a serious environmental disaster," they noted, adding that "huge quantities of untreated and unsorted garbage were accumulated [in the landfill]" in a context of "intentional and persistent negligence."
Created in 2016, the Burj Hammoud-Jdeideh landfill contains waste whose treatment and sorting had been entrusted by the state to a private company, following a call for tenders. Initially planned to only be in operation for four years, it was extended until 2026. The investigation has not yet shown whether last Thursday's fire was of criminal or accidental origin.
The fourteen lawyers accompanied their complaint with documents, including reports from Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Greenpeace. In the aftermath of the disaster, Greenpeace’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) campaign manager Farah Hattab stated that the fire “led to environmental degradation and posed serious health threats,” believing that “Lebanon can no longer rely on temporary solutions, but on effective, urgent and sustainable solutions to resolve the waste crisis.” HRW warned in 2019 against the saturation of the Burj-Hammoud-Jdeideh landfill, emphasizing the increase in diseases contracted by residents of the region, which could be caused by “the lack of implementation of a government waste management strategy.”
Increase the pressure
Asked by L'Orient-Le Jour, Pascal Daher, a doctor of public law, who was responsible for presenting the complaint, said that he and his colleagues are entitled to address the U.N. body.
"The sustainable environment is part of human rights," he stated, stressing that "any violation of this right can be the subject of a complaint by a citizen of a state that is a signatory to the International Convention on Human Rights (1977), by virtue of a power to accept it, entrusted to the Human Rights Council by the United Nations General Assembly."
Daher, however, specified that the council is not "a jurisdiction," but "a body dedicated to monitoring respect for human rights."
He said that he completed, on the United Nations website, all the procedures required for the request. It should be immediately transferred to a commission that would be responsible for examining it, conducting an investigation, contacting the complainants for more information and addressing the state to ask it to respond to the applicants via the U.N. commission.
Based on the results of its action, the Human Rights Council will have to provide the Lebanese State as well as the General Assembly and the Secretary-General of the U.N. with "recommendations."
Daher stated that, along with his colleagues, he asked the international body to urge the state to "close the Burj Hammoud landfill and take measures to stop the pollution of groundwater and the Mediterranean Sea, in accordance with the Barcelona Convention (1976) to which Lebanon is a signatory."
"These recommendations will make it possible to put pressure on politicians, legislators and courts in Lebanon," the plaintiff's lawyer said.
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.