“Switzerland has not done enough to mitigate the effects of climate change”: historic ECHR ruling

The ruling is destined to make history and jurisprudence: for the first time the European Court of Human Rights has linked the protection of human rights to compliance with climate obligations. In this case, Switzerland was condemned after an association of elderly women sued and partially won the appeal. There […]

There judgment is destined to make history and law: for the first time the European Court of Human Rights has linked the protection of human rights to compliance with climate obligations. In this case, the Swiss after an association of elderly women sued and partially won the appeal. There ECHRexcluding the violation of Article 2 from the sentence, condemned him Swiss state for having violated Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, i.e. the right to respect for private and family life, as it did not take sufficient measures to mitigate the effects of climate change. The ECHR always has declared however, the appeal on the climate by young Portuguese people against their State and 31 others was inadmissible and at the same time it reached the same conclusion for the case of a former French mayor, even if for reasons different.

THE THREE CASES – The ‘Swiss’ verdict of the ECHR is on the case ‘Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland‘, a proceeding initiated following the appeal presented by the Swiss association Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland and by other individual plaintiffs, supported by Greenpeace Swiss“. “The recurring – we read – they ask the Court to oblige Switzerland to intervene to protect their human rights, and to adopt the legislative and administrative measures necessary to help avoid an increase in the average global temperature of more than 1.5°C, by applying concrete objectives reduction of greenhouse gas emissions”. Instead the caseDuarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States‘ is a lawsuit brought by a group of young Portuguese against 32 member states of the European Union, accused of not doing enough to reduce emissions. ‘Carême v. France‘, however, has as its protagonist the former mayor of the transalpine country Grande-Synthe, who argues that France has not taken sufficient measures to limit global warming.” Lawyers in all three cases hoped that the Court of Strasbourg established that national governments had a legal duty to ensure that global warming is contained to within 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, in line with goals of the Paris climate agreement. In one case they were right. And that’s enough to get into history.