Italy: Court permits hunting ban on one's own land for ethical reasons

In Italy, an administrative court has for the first time recognised that a landowner can have hobby hunting on their own land banned for ethical reasons.

The Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale (TAR) Pescara ruled in judgment No. 254/2026 that an ethical rejection of hunting is a legitimate reason to keep hobby hunters off one's own property. The region may only reject such an application if it objectively demonstrates that withdrawing the specific plot of land would prevent the goals of the regional wildlife and hunting plan.

With this, Italy joins a development that has long been taking effect in several European countries and which we have already pointed out on wildbeimwild.com: the right to keep one's own land free of hunting for reasons of conscience.

Five years of proceedings over a piece of land

It all began with the application of a citizen. In 2020, she requested that the President of the Abruzzo region prohibit the practice of hunting on her own property, based on Article 15 paragraph 4 of the Italian hunting act No. 157/1992. The region's department of agriculture refused. A legal dispute followed that dragged on for around five years.

The refusal was based, among other things, on the argument that more than 30 percent of the area in the region had already been withdrawn from hunting, which was regarded as an immovable upper limit. Furthermore, ethical or scientific motives were not suitable to justify an exception under Article 15. The court rejected both assumptions.

Two central findings of the court

The judgment rests on two pillars. Firstly, the court made clear that the 30 percent limit of regional territory withdrawn from hunting does not constitute an inviolable upper limit. The authority therefore cannot rely on a blanket claim that the quota has been exhausted.

Secondly, and more fundamentally significant, the court recognised ethical and moral convictions as a legitimate ground for demanding an access ban for hobby hunters on one's own land. Should the region wish to reject such an application, it must set out in detail and objectively the extent to which this particular plot of land is indispensable for achieving the objectives of the wildlife and hunting plan. The ethical motives must be duly taken into account.

Editorial comment: Italy adds another point to the European map of conscience protection. That a person may refuse killing on their own land is not an exotic special case, but a human-rights standard. Switzerland continues to withhold this right from its landowners, even though a single political decision would suffice to grant it.

Wald kaufen und jagdfrei halten: Wie Privateigentum zur Schutzzone für Wildtiere wird

The common thread: the case law from Strasbourg

What is decisive is what the Italian court relies upon: the established case law of the European Court of Human Rights. According to this, a landowner is not obliged to tolerate others hunting on their land if hunting contradicts their personal and moral convictions. Since, in the Court's view, hunting serves predominantly recreational purposes, it must not become a disproportionate interference by third parties in the private sphere.

It is precisely the line that the Court drew in the cases of Chassagnou v France, Schneider v Luxembourg and Herrmann v Germany. Italy is now taking its own path: not through a nationwide change in the law as in Germany, but through the administrative-court interpretation of the existing hunting act. The result is the same. Those who reject hobby hunting on ethical grounds should not have to accept it on their own land.

What this means for Switzerland

As a contracting state, Switzerland is bound by the same European Convention on Human Rights as France, Luxembourg, Germany and Italy. The right to have one's own land freed from hunting on ethical grounds is grounded in human rights. All that is lacking is the political will to implement it. The Italian ruling shows that this does not necessarily require a major legislative reform, but that a consistent interpretation of the law in force may already suffice.

Read more at wildbeimwild.com

• Buying forest and keeping it hunting-free: How private property becomes a protected zone for wild animals
• Hobby hunting and human rights in Switzerland
• More from the category Animal rights