Europe’s top human rights court made a groundbreaking ruling on Tuesday, declaring that the Swiss government had violated its citizens’ human rights by not taking sufficient action to combat climate change. This landmark decision by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, marks a significant step in the global movement of using human rights law to hold governments accountable for their role in addressing climate change.
While the court rejected climate-related cases brought by the former mayor of a coastal town in France and a group of young people in Portugal as inadmissible, it focused on three cases filed by members of the public in France, Portugal, and Switzerland. These individuals argued that their governments’ lack of action to mitigate climate change was a violation of their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.
One notable case involved a group of Swiss women aged 64 and older, known as the KlimaSeniorinnen, who claimed that the Swiss government’s failure to reduce greenhouse emissions sufficiently had infringed upon their rights to life and autonomy. With heat waves becoming more frequent in Switzerland and older women being particularly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses, the litigants argued that the government had not done enough to protect their well-being in their final years.
Another case centered on Damien Carême, a former mayor of Grande-Synthe, a town on the coast of the English Channel in France. Carême alleged that France had not taken adequate measures to prevent global warming, putting the town at risk of increased flooding due to climate change. He argued that this failure violated the right to life enshrined in European law.
In a third case, six young people from Portugal born between 1999 and 2012 argued that the effects of climate change, such as heat waves, wildfires, and resulting smoke, were negatively impacting their lives, well-being, and mental health. They held 33 Paris Climate Agreement signatory countries in the region accountable for failing to meet their commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions.
The court’s ruling against Switzerland sets a precedent for future climate-related lawsuits and underscores the growing importance of addressing climate change through a human rights lens. As Professor Annalisa Savaresi of the University of Stirling in Scotland noted, this decision will likely have significant implications for national courts and could pave the way for more legal challenges aimed at compelling governments to take decisive action against global warming.
