The Right to Peace: Why Noise Protection Must Be Equitable
Imagine living in a neighborhood with multiple dogs. Their unpredictable barking disrupts your sleep, your work, and your health. Yet, when you seek relief, you are told to document the disturbances, navigate bureaucratic hurdles, and prove that your suffering meets an arbitrary threshold. Meanwhile, the dog owner faces no preemptive responsibility to ensure their pet does not create excessive noise. This imbalance is not just frustrating—it is a failure of legal fairness. At the heart of this failure is a systemic bias that favors noise creators over those affected by it. Many legal systems claim to balance competing interests, but in practice, they shift the burden of proof onto victims rather than addressing noise at its source. A just legal framework must instead recognize two fundamental principles: equal protection under the law and the state’s proactive duty to prevent harm. Equal Protection: A Right to Reasonable Acoustic Security Many legal systems enshrine equality as a co...