Climate litigation: the ECHR’s historic ruling

published on 7. May 2024 | reading time approx. 3 minutes

The European Court of Human Rights in its ruling of 9 April 2024, following appeal No. 53600/20, lodged against Switzerland by the Verein Klima Seniorinnen Schweiz and Others, i.e. the Swiss association 'Senior Citizens for Climate Switzerland' and other individual claimants, condemned Switzerland in a landmark ruling in which for the first time the protection of human rights is linked to compliance with climate obligations.

Specifically, in their application, the plaintiffs 'asked the Court to compel Switzerland to intervene to protect their human rights, and to take the necessary legislative and administrative measures to help avert an increase in the average global temperature by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, by applying concrete targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions'.

The association of elderly women that sued Switzerland has had its claims partially upheld. The ECHR, ruling out the violation of Article 2, in fact condemned the Swiss State for violating Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, i.e. the right to respect for private and family life.

In particular, according to the European Court of Human Rights, Switzerland 'failed to fulfil its obligations in the area of climate change' and 'there were critical deficiencies in the process that was supposed to enable the creation of a regulatory framework, including the failure of the authorities to quantify through a carbon budget or otherwise the limits of national greenhouse gas emissions'. For the Strasbourg judges, 'inadequate state action to combat climate change aggravates the risks of harmful consequences and threatens the enjoyment of human rights', violating Article 8 of the Convention on Human Rights.

On the other hand, the ECHR rejected two similar cases brought respectively by six young Portuguese activists and the former mayor of Grande-Synthe, France.

The ruling at any rate a very important precedent in the sense that it could serve as a reference in other climate change cases. In fact, it could also be applicable to the 46 member states of the Council of Europe. Indeed, in the ruling, the ECHR explains that national authorities have a "margin of appreciation" and can choose the measures to be implemented to achieve their objectives. A state must therefore have precise greenhouse gas reduction targets, a carbon balance or any other equivalent method to quantify future greenhouse gas emissions, and a monitoring mechanism to verify that these targets are achieved.

In Italy only a few weeks ago, the Court of Rome, in its judgement dated 26 February 2024, rejected the appeal of the 'Giudizio Universale campaign', which brought together some 200 subjects. The judge heard the case against the Italian state's inaction on the climate crisis and the lowering of emissions was considered inadmissible, but only on the grounds of a procedural issue or lack of jurisdiction. In particular, the judgment reads as follows: "the interest for which compensation protection is claimed under Articles 2043 and 2051 of the Italian Civil Code does not fall within the category of legally protected subjective interests, since decisions relating to the methods and timescales for managing the phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change - which involve discretionary socio-economic and cost-benefit assessments in the most varied sectors of human life - fall within the sphere of attribution of political bodies and cannot be sanctioned in the present proceedings".

[...] In fact, with regard to the subordinate request to obtain a modification of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC), it is stated that [...] 'the alleged deficiencies of the plan in terms of adequacy, consistency and reasonableness with respect to these objectives in our system are censurable before the administrative judge'. We will see if the Court of Rome's ruling will be appealed.

In the meantime, however, in light of the very recent and historic ECHR ruling that condemned Switzerland, it is possible to imagine that other associations - including Italian ones - will now look into the possibility of filing similar actions with the ECHR.