SENSORY OVERLOAD IN MODERN JURISPRUDENCE: INTEGRATING LIGHT TRESPASS AND ACOUSTIC DISTURBANCE INTO COMPARATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION FRAMEWORKS

Abstract

Environmental law has organised itself around media that are visible and chemically measurable: air, water, soil, and biological resource. Sound and artificial light have entered this framework only belatedly and unevenly, treated as marginal nuisance rather than as a coherent category of harm. This paper submits that acoustic disturbance and light trespass are twin manifestations of a single underlying wrong, the unbargained-for imposition of a sensory stimulus that a person cannot escape within their own home, and that no jurisdiction currently regulates them as such. Drawing on comparative material from India, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union, the paper traces how constitutional doctrine, statutory nuisance law, common law balancing, and administrative planning have each extended protection to noise while leaving light trespass comparatively unregulated. It grounds this claim in a theory of sensory sovereignty over the domestic sphere, and closes by proposing an integrated sensory pollution framework built on definitional parity between sound and light, zone-based cumulative standards, and a single specialised enforcement body, illustrated with a model statutory clause.