Experts have said that the landmark legal ruling at the European court of human rights could open the floodgates for a slew of new court cases around the world.
Earlier this week, the Strasbourg-based court said that Switzerland’s failure to do enough to cut its national greenhouse gas emissions was a clear violation of the human rights of a group of more than 2,000 older Swiss women. The women argued successfully that their rights to privacy and family life were being breached because they were particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of heatwaves.
This was the first time the court, which is responsible for interpreting the European convention on human rights, a treaty signed by all members of the Council of Europe, had ruled on a climate change-related matter.
Lawyers, academics and campaigners will be poring over the 250-page judgment for months to come. But it is already clear that it marks a significant shift in the role that courts will play in addressing the climate crisis and how states will have to respond.
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“The court really recognised that it cannot be that because everyone is affected no one has the right to seek justice for climate harm,” said Nikki Reisch, climate and energy director at the Center for International Environmental Law. “And it acknowledged that because of the clear impacts of climate change on human rights there is a basis for victims to make claims.”
According to reports, the 17-judge panel did not prescribe exactly what Switzerland should do to address the problem, leaving it to the Council of Europe’s committee of ministers to come up with a solution. But it did lay out minimum governance standards that states should have “due regard” to, such as setting carbon budgets and interim targets, keeping these updated and based on the best available evidence, and being transparent about how well they are being met.
Reisch said: “What the court did quite clearly was to say that, while the Swiss government retains some discretion to define the precise measures it will take, that discretion is not unfettered; it has to be within the bounds of what science shows is clearly required to prevent further harm.”
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
