The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is based in Strasbourg (France), and from there interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. Since its founding in 1959, the ECHR has handed down more than 10,000 judgments regarding alleged violations of civil and political rights.
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But on March 29 this year, he was confronted for the first time with a complaint he had not received until then: climate protection as a human right. The case was brought to court by a Swiss women’s association named KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz (Swiss Senior Women for Climate Protection), with a mean age of 73 years.
The charges were leveled against the Swiss government for violating the rights to life and health of older women, which are included in articles 2, 6, 8 and 13 of the Criminal Code. European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and arrived at European courts afterward six year battle and that his complaint was dismissed in the Swiss Federal Court.
These women claim it the Swiss government is not doing what is necessary to comply with the Paris Agreement on emissions and if all countries respond the same as Switzerland, there will be global warming of up to 3℃ by 2100.
The Swiss government does not deny that climate change can affect health, but argues that emissions cannot be linked specifically to the health of older women. He stressed that climate action is a matter for politicians to decide.
However, politicians around the world do not seem to be taking up the challenge of climate change with urgency or decisiveness in recent years. In the latest report from the IPCC (UN intergovernmental panel on climate change) governments are urged to abandon their passivity and take “urgent action” to limit emissions.
The Swiss women from KlimaSeniorinnen are not the only ones who have brought their claims to this court. The ECtHR also received a lawsuit in 2021, pending a verdict, from Damien Careme, former mayor from the municipality of Grande-Synthe in France.
This criticized the French government arguing that the failure of the authorities to take all appropriate measures so that France can respect maximum levels of greenhouse gas emissions is a violation of its obligations to protect the right to private and family life.
Previously, in 2020, six Portuguese youths filed suit before ECtHR against the Portuguese and 32 other states (all in the European Union plus Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom).
Similar accusations: the defendants have violated human rights by not taking adequate action on climate change. Citizens are taking their governments to court for not acting tough on climate change, but will it help?
ECHR authority on climate
Climate protection within the ECtHR is a legally complex issue. Although the ECHR does not contain specific environmental rights, the ECtHR has interpreted that some violations against the environment are violation of some rights.
The first case to win in this sense is case aa woman from Lorca, Murcia, Gregoria López Ostra, against the Spanish governmentwho took his lawsuit to court over pollution and odors from the sewage treatment plant next to his house.
The ECHR found violations of articles 3 and 8 of the ECHR and ordered the Spanish government to pay compensation for damages of four million pesetas and court costs. However, Klimaseniorinnen’s claim was the first to reach the Supreme Chamber of the court.
One of the objections of the Spanish government during the case was that the plaintiffs were not victims of human rights violations and these are the same objections other countries have raised to defend themselves against such lawsuits.
The other is that there is no causal link between the alleged emissions from a particular country and the effects of global warming.
Alongside Klimaseniorinnen’s lawsuit, the ECtHR will also hear the Damien Carême case and, after the summer, the case of the Portuguese applicants. The verdict on these cases could be big impactnot only for the 46 member states of the European Council, but for the whole world.
This is the first time the ECHR is holding a public hearing to determine the extent to which a country like Switzerland should reduce its emissions to protect the environment.
If court decided that climate protection is a human rightor, it could impact and translate into changes in state laws. If the ruling dismisses the lawsuit, it will justify inaction by the state.
On the other hand, a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would represent a change in the attitude of the ECtHR, which until recently avoided taking a legislative role. But that’s not the only high court facing this dilemma.
Legal avenues to stop climate change are not limited to Europe. On March 31, member states of the United Nations adopted a historic resolution on climate justice in which they asked the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, to clarify the obligations of the State to address the climate emergency.
Although humanity’s protection against climate change has hitherto been represented by a Swedish teenager, perhaps it is some Swiss pensioner who will change history.
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