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european court of human rights
European Court of Human Rights Delivers 'Quantum Leap for Climate Accountability'
"Requiring governments to assess the global climate consequences of oil and gas combustion before approving new fossil projects is common sense, and long overdue," said one campaigner.
Oct 28, 2025
Although the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday sided with the Norwegian government over six young adults and a pair of climate groups, the plaintiffs still welcomed the tribunal's ruling as "a major step forward," in the words of Frode Pleym, head of Greenpeace Norway.
The case stems from the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy granting 10 exploration licenses to 13 companies for fossil fuel production in the Arctic Barents Sea in 2016. The plaintiffs argued that doing so violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, or the right to respect for private and family life.
The court unanimously held that "there had been no violation" of Article 8, but it also affirmed that the government must conduct a full environmental impact assessment, including greenhouse gas emissions from combustion, for any new petroleum production.
"It's a relief to see the court recognize what science has told us for years—that new oil and gas fields threaten our most basic human rights," Pleym said in a statement. "Requiring governments to assess the global climate consequences of oil and gas combustion before approving new fossil projects is common sense, and long overdue."
Young Friends of the Earth Norway, which sued alongside Greenpeace and the six individuals, also praised the ruling as progress.
"This decision is a quantum leap for climate accountability," said the group's leader, Sigrid Hoddevik Losnegård. "The government can no longer continue its oil and gas policy as if climate change doesn't exist. This judgment will have ripple effects far beyond Norway."
I can think of at least seven ways fossil fuel producers could wiggle out of this, but still: holy shit this is huge.
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— Dr. Genevieve Guenther (she/they) (@doctorvive.bsky.social) October 28, 2025 at 7:17 AM
The plaintiffs noted in a joint statement that the ruling "builds on" recent decisions from the International Court of Justice and the UK Supreme Court. The ICJ said in a landmark advisory opinion in July that countries have a legal obligation to take cooperative action to address the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency. At the time, Danilo Garrido, legal counsel at Greenpeace International, hailed the development as "the start of a new era of climate accountability at a global level."
That decision came roughly a year after the UK's top court ruled that Surrey authorities' approval of the Horse Hill drilling project "was unlawful" because they didn't consider "emissions that will occur when the oil produced is burnt as fuel," as required by law. Friends of the Earth UK called the ruling "a heavy blow for the fossil fuel industry" that could impact other projects.
The European court's Tuesday decision came less than two weeks away from the start of the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil. In preparation for COP30, the UN on Tuesday released a report warning that governments' climate plans would reduce fossil fuel emissions by just 10% by 2035 compared to 2019 levels, far short of what is needed to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise this century to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
As Oil Change International pointed out in a June report, Norway and three other wealthy nations—Australia, Canada, and the United States—account for the majority of planned oil and gas expansion over the next decade. This month, the group commissioned a poll that found a majority of Norwegians believe their country should either stop exploring for new oil and gas or slow down the pace.
"The data show that Norwegians increasingly want political leadership that aligns the country's oil policy with its climate goals," Oil Change's North Sea campaign manager, Silje Lundberg, said Monday. "People are calling time on endless oil expansion—it's the government that's stuck in the past. The public clearly wants a plan to phase down oil and gas and deliver real climate leadership, not more empty talk from ministers protecting the industry."
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'Highly Inspiring' Court Ruling Affirms Nations' Legal Duty to Combat Climate Emergency
"While the United States and some other major polluters have chosen to ignore climate science, the rest of the international community is advancing protections," said one observer.
Jul 04, 2025
In a landmark advisory opinion published Thursday, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights—of which the United States, the world's second-biggest carbon polluter, is not a member—affirmed the right to a stable climate and underscored nations' duty to act to protect it and address the worsening planetary emergency.
"States must refrain from any conduct that reverses, slows down, or truncates the outcome of measures necessary to protect human rights in the face of the impacts of climate change," a summary of the 234-page ruling states. "Any rollback of climate or environmental policies that affect human rights must be exceptional, duly justified based on objective criteria, and comply with standards of necessity and proportionality."
"The court also held that... states must take all necessary measures to reduce the risks arising, on the one hand, from the degradation of the global climate system and, on the other, from exposure and vulnerability to the effects of such degradation," the summary adds.
"States must refrain from any conduct that reverses, slows down, or truncates the outcome of measures necessary to protect human rights in the face of the impacts of climate change."
The case was brought before the Costa-Rica based IACtHR by Chile and Colombia, both of which "face the daily challenge of dealing with the consequences of the climate emergency, including the proliferation of droughts, floods, landslides, and fires, among others."
"These phenomena highlight the need to respond urgently and based on the principles of equity, justice, cooperation, and sustainability, with a human rights-based approach," the court asserted.
IACtHR President Judge Nancy Hernández López said following the ruling that "states must not only refrain from causing significant environmental damage but have the positive obligation to take measures to guarantee the protection, restoration, and regeneration of ecosystems."
"Causing massive and irreversible environmental harm...alters the conditions for a healthy life on Earth to such an extent that it creates consequences of existential proportions," she added. "Therefore, it demands universal and effective legal responses."
The advisory opinion builds on two landmark decisions last year. In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Swiss government violated senior citizens' human rights by refusing to abide by scientists' warnings to rapidly phase out fossil fuel production.
The following month, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea found in an advisory opinion that greenhouse gas emissions are marine pollution under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and that signatories to the accord "have the specific obligation to adopt laws and regulations to prevent, reduce, and control" them.
The IACtHR advisory opinion is expected to boost climate and human rights lawsuits throughout the Americas, and to impact talks ahead of November's United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, in Belém, Brazil.
Climate defenders around the world hailed Thursday's advisory opinion, with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk calling it "a landmark step forward for the region—and beyond."
"As the impact of climate change becomes ever more visible across the world, the court is clear: People have a right to a stable climate and a healthy environment," Türk added. "States have a bedrock obligation under international law not to take steps that cause irreversible climate and environmental damage, and they have a duty to act urgently to take the necessary measures to protect the lives and rights of everyone—both those alive now and the interests of future generations."
Amnesty International head of strategic litigation Mandi Mudarikwa said, "Today, the Inter-American Court affirmed and clarified the obligations of states to respect, ensure, prevent, and cooperate in order to realize human rights in the context of the climate crisis."
"Crucially, the court recognized the autonomous right to a healthy climate for both individuals and communities, linked to the right to a healthy environment," Mudarikwa added. "The court also underscored the obligation of states to protect cross-border climate-displaced persons, including through the issuance of humanitarian visas and protection from deportation."
Delta Merner, lead scientist at the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that "this opinion sets an important precedent affirming that governments have a legal duty to regulate corporate conduct that drives climate harm."
"Though the United States is not a party to the treaty governing the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, this opinion should be a clarion call for transnational fossil fuel companies that have deceived the public for decades about the risks of their products," Merner added. "The era of accountability is here."
Markus Gehring, a fellow and director of studies in law at Hughes Hall at the University of Cambridge in England, called the advisory opinion "highly inspiring" and "seminal."
Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife, and oceans at Earthjustice, said that "the Inter-American Court's ruling makes clear that climate change is an overriding threat to human rights in the world."
"Governments must act to cut carbon emissions drastically," Caputo stressed. "While the United States and some other major polluters have chosen to ignore climate science, the rest of the international community is advancing protections for all from the realities of climate harm."
Climate litigation is increasing globally in the wake of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. In the Americas, Indigenous peoples, children, and green groups are among those who have been seeking climate justice via litigation.
However, in the United States, instead of acknowledging the climate emergency, President Donald Trump has declared an "energy emergency" while pursuing a "drill, baby, drill" policy of fossil fuel extraction and expansion.
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'A Betrayal': Women Elders Rip Swiss Lawmakers' Rejection of Landmark Climate Ruling
"The declaration is an attempt to continue to prevent human rights climate protection for political reasons, rather than recognizing that climate change is a scientific reality that affects everyone," said Greenpeace Switzerland.
Jun 13, 2024
Swiss women elders who recently won a landmark climate case said that they feel betrayed by their federal lawmakers, who voted Wednesday to disregard the court ruling.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled in April that the Swiss government violated senior citizens' human rights by refusing to heed scientists' climate warnings and swiftly phase out fossil fuel production.
However, on Wednesday the National Council—Switzerland's lower legislative chamber—voted 111-72 to essentially ignore the court's decision, which some lawmakers condemned as judicial overreach. This followed a 31-11 vote by the Council of States, the upper legislative chamber, on a similar measure earlier this month.
"Climate and health are intrinsically linked; good health and a safe climate go hand in hand."
"We are appalled by this decision which feels like both a betrayal of older women but is also out of step with humankind's collective responsibility to tackle climate change for the benefits of vulnerable groups and the future of all humankind," said Pia Hollenstein, a retired nurse and member of KlimaSeniorinnen, the group of women ages 64 and older who sued their government for failing to take adequate action to stop the planet from heating 1.5°C, the more ambitious target of the Paris agreement.
"As a nurse, I have seen how climate and health are intrinsically linked; good health and a safe climate go hand in hand," she added.
Responding to Wednesday's vote, Greenpeace Switzerland said that "the declaration is an attempt to continue to prevent human rights climate protection for political reasons, rather than recognizing that climate change is a scientific reality that affects everyone."
Switzerland's Alpine climate is particularly vulnerable the effects of global heating, which is mainly caused by burning fossil fuels. Studies have shown that the country's glaciers—a key water source for millions of Europeans—could disappear by the end of the century if warming isn't curbed.
At least one lawmaker who voted to flout the ECtHR ruling attacked KlimaSeniorinnen members. Jean-Luc Addor of the right-wing Swiss People's Party dismissed the activists as "just a bunch of... 'boomeuses',"—or female Baby Boomers—"who are trying to deny our children the living conditions they have enjoyed all their lives."
However, Véronique Boillet, a member of the Swiss Human Rights Institute and a law professor at the University of Lausanne, said in a statement: "The binding nature of the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights is the heart of the European human rights system. It is the element that makes this system unique and a model worldwide."
"It is not for the Swiss Parliament to decide when a judgment has been implemented and when further measures are necessary," she continued. "It is normal that courts set certain objectives, as the ECtHR did for Swiss politics. It is also a sign of a functioning system of checks and balances."
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South Korean Court Hears First Asian Youth Climate Case
"Carbon emission reduction keeps getting pushed back as if it is homework that can be done later," said one plaintiff's mother. "But that burden will be what our children have to bear eventually."
Apr 23, 2024
One of South Korea's two highest courts on Tuesday began hearing Asia's first-ever youth-led climate lawsuit, which accuses the country's government of failing to protect citizens from the effects of the worsening, human-caused planetary emergency.
Nineteen members of the advocacy group Youth4ClimateAction filed a constitutional complaint in March 2020 accusing the South Korean government of violating their rights to life, the "pursuit of happiness," a "healthy and pleasant environment," and to "resist against human extinction."
The lawsuit also notes "the inequality between the adult generation who can enjoy the relatively pleasant environment and the youth generation who must face a potential disaster from climate change," as well as the government's obligation to prevent and protect citizens from environmental disasters.
"South Korea's current climate plans are not sufficient to keep the temperature increase within 1.5°C, thus violating the state's obligation to protect fundamental rights," the plaintiffs said in a statement.
South Korea's Constitutional Court began hearing a case that accuses the government of having failed to protect 200 people, including dozens of young environmental activists and children, by not tackling climate change https://t.co/XRIGE23KGM pic.twitter.com/snvqBaGGe9
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 23, 2024
Signatories to the 2015 Paris agreement committed to "holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C."
According to the United Nations Environment Program's (UNEP) most recent Emissions Gap Report, the world must slash greenhouse gas emissions by 28% before 2030 to limit warming to 2°C above preindustrial levels and 42% to halt warming at 1.5°C. UNEP said that based on current policies and practices, the world is on track for 2.9°C of warming by the end of the century.
A summary of the lawsuit notes that South Korea is the fifth-largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations, and that the government is constitutionally obligated to protect Koreans from the climate emergency.
Instead, the plaintiffs argue, the Korean Parliament "gave the government total discretion to set the GHG reduction target without providing any specific guidelines." Furthermore, they contend that the government's downgraded reduction targets fall "far short of what is necessary to satisfy the temperature rise threshold acknowledged by the global community."
Lee Donghyun, the mother of one of the plaintiffs, told Reuters: "Carbon emission reduction keeps getting pushed back as if it is homework that can be done later. But that burden will be what our children have to bear eventually."
The South Korean case comes on the heels of a landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which found that Switzerland's government violated senior citizens' human rights by refusing to heed scientists' warnings to swiftly phase out fossil fuel production.
The ECHR ruled on the same day that climate cases brought by a former French mayor and a group of Portuguese youth were inadmissible.
Courts in Australia, Brazil, and Peru also have human rights-based climate cases on their dockets.
In the United States, a state judge in Montana ruled last year in favor of 16 young residents who argued that fossil fuel extraction violated their constitutional right to "a clean and healthful environment."
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is trying to derail a historic youth-led climate lawsuit against the U.S. government.
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In 'Landmark' Ruling, Top EU Court Rules Swiss Climate Inaction Violates Human Rights
"This ruling is a call to action for the climate movement—we will not stop demanding action from governments on their clear obligations, set out in this ruling, to prevent climate catastrophe," said one attorney.
Apr 09, 2024
A decision handed down by one of the European Union's top courts on Tuesday should signal to governments across the bloc and beyond that their time may soon be up when it comes to delaying climate action, as the panel ruled the Swiss government has violated the human rights of its senior citizens by refusing to abide by scientists' warnings and swiftly phase out fossil fuel production.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) announced its decisions in three separate climate cases, including one brought by the KlimaSeniorinnen, or Senior Women for Climate Protection, in Switzerland.
The group of about 2,400 women aged 64 and up argued last year that the Swiss government has violated their rights by failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to stop intensifying heatwaves and other climate impacts from affecting citizens.
The plaintiffs cited research showing that older women are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses and death.
Switzerland has pledged to cut planet-heating fossil fuel emissions by 50% from 1990 levels by the end of the decade. In 2021 voters rejected a proposal to tax airline tickets and fuel to help the country meet its goal.
According to the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology, Switzerland is warming at twice the rate of the global average.
The Climate Action Tracker has classified Swiss climate policies and actions as "insufficient," partially because it has implemented agreements with other countries to offset its domestic emissions in an attempt to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Gerry Liston, an attorney representing another group of litigants from Portugal, told The New York Times that the ECHR's acknowledgment that Switzerland's policies are not based in science was especially significant.
"No European government's climate policies are aligned with anything near" the Paris climate agreement's goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C, Liston said, "so it will be clear to those working on climate litigation in those countries that there is now a clear basis to bring a case in their national courts."
Joie Chowdhury, senior attorney for the Center for International Environmental Law, said the ruling—the first by an international human rights court on governments' climate inaction—is likely "to influence climate action and climate litigation across Europe and far beyond."
"Today's historic judgment... leaves no doubt: The climate crisis is a human rights crisis, and states have human rights obligations to act urgently and effectively and in line with the best available science to prevent further devastation and harm to people and the environment," said Chowdhury. "The ruling reinforces the vital role of courts—both international and domestic—in holding governments to their legal obligations to protect human rights from environmental harm. It also affirms the power and courage of those who speak out and dare to demand a livable future for all."
The other two cases on which the ECHR ruled Tuesday, finding them "inadmissable," were brought by a former mayor of a town in France and a group of six Portuguese children and young people, ranging in age from 12-25.
Damien Carême, former mayor of Grande-Synthe and now a member of the European Parliament for the Green Party, argued France had taken insufficient steps to protect the coastal town from flooding. The ECHR ruled that the case was not admissible because Carême no longer lives in Grande-Synthe.
The six Portuguese plaintiffs had argued that the effects of fossil fuel-driven planetary heating—including heatwaves and wildfires—have and will continue to affect their lives and wellbeing. The court ruled the group had not exhausted all its legal options in Portugal.
The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), which represented the Portuguese group, said the court's decision was still "a win for all generations," because the court made clear that "government failure to rapidly cut emissions is a violation of human rights."
"This ruling is a call to action for the climate movement—we will not stop demanding action from governments on their clear obligations, set out in this ruling, to prevent climate catastrophe," said GLAN.
The Council of Europe's 46 members, which includes all 27 E.U. countries, are bound by the ECHR's rulings, and the verdict opens the countries up to similar cases in national courts.
Delta Merner, lead scientist at the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the court's mixed rulings "underscore how difficult it can be for impacted communities to demonstrate in a legal setting what science has clearly shown for decades: the direct connection between heat-trapping emissions, climate change, and the extreme weather impacts they are experiencing such as heatwaves and wildfires."
"The uphill battle for climate accountability persists as vulnerable communities bravely challenge entrenched political, economic, and legal systems that have historically prioritized the fossil fuel industry and private interests," said Merner. "The courts still have a critical role to play in holding high-emitting entities accountable for their role in the climate crisis, helping to address historical responsibility for the release of heat-trapping emissions resulting in climate injustice, and protecting human rights for current and future generations."
The ECHR has had six other climate cases on hold pending the decisions handed down Tuesday, including one against the Norwegian government. Plaintiffs in that case argue Norway violated human rights by issuing new licenses for oil and gas drilling in the Barents Sea beyond 2035.
Scientists and the International Energy Agency have said in recent years that there's no place for new fossil fuel production on a pathway to limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C.
Courts in Australia, Brazil, Peru, and South Korea are also considering human rights-based climate cases.
Despite the ECHR's mixed rulings, Merner called the decision regarding Switzerland "groundbreaking."
"This ruling highlights the undeniable link between government climate policies and the fundamental rights to life and family," said Merner. "With extreme weather events like heatwaves becoming more frequent and intense due to fossil fuel exacerbated climate change, this landmark judgment sends a clear message: Governments must strengthen their efforts to combat climate change, not just as a matter of environmental policy, but as a crucial aspect of protecting human rights."
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European Court: Polish Abortion Verdict Violated Woman's Rights
A Polish rights group representing the patient said the ruling "is a milestone and another argument that Polish law, which causes so much suffering for women in Poland, must change."
Dec 14, 2023
A court in Europe ruled Thursday that a 2020 Constitutional Tribunal judgment further restricting already limited abortion access in Poland violated a pregnant woman's right to respect for private and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The applicant, a Warsaw resident identified in court papers as M.L., became pregnant in 2020. After her fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 21, or Down syndrome, she scheduled an appointment for an abortion at a Polish hospital. However, the Constitutional Tribunal determined that abortions because of fetal abnormalities are unconstitutional, a policy that took effect in January 2021.
Because of that policy change—which remains in effect and means that pregnant people in Poland can only receive abortion care in cases of rape or incest, or if the patient's life is at risk—M.L. could no longer terminate her pregnancy in her country.
"A return to the legal situation before the ruling of the Polish constitutional court is not enough—what is needed is access to legal abortion regardless of the reason."
"In her rapidly deteriorating mental state, M.L. had to organize a trip abroad within a few days, leaving her family and loved ones in Poland," her lawyers said, according to The Guardian. "For an abortion, which only a few days earlier would have been performed for free in a nearby hospital, she had to travel to the Netherlands. She spent more than 5,500 zloty ($1,400)."
The European Court of Human Rights' Thursday decision was 5-2, with judges Krzysztof Wojtyczek of Poland and Péter Paczolay of Hungary dissenting. In its ruling that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights was violated, the ECHR noted that the Polish tribunal included members appointed in a procedure that was found to be in breach of the treaty in a 2021 case.
The ECHR also unanimously declared inadmissible a separate case involving 927 women of childbearing age who argued they were potential victims of a violation of their rights as Polish law forces them to carry pregnancies to term even in the case of fetal abnormality.
Despite that denial, Federa, a Polish rights group that had lawyers representing M.L., celebrated the outcome of her case—which includes over €16,000 ($17,582) in damages—as a sign of broader progress.
"We fought for this decision for every woman living in Poland," Federa said in a statement. "This verdict is a milestone and another argument that Polish law, which causes so much suffering for women in Poland, must change."
"We expect the new Polish government to liberalize abortion law," the group added. "A return to the legal situation before the ruling of the Polish constitutional court is not enough—what is needed is access to legal abortion regardless of the reason."
The tightening of Polish abortion law occurred under the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party that was just ousted from power. Reuters noted Thursday that "Poland's new liberal government has promised to protect women's rights and Prime Minister Donald Tusk vowed to present a bill making abortion legal until 12 weeks, although President Andrzej Duda may veto any such law."
Notes From Poland pointed out that "the various parties that make up the new coalition disagree on whether there should also be further liberalization of the law" and in addition to a veto threat from Duda, any policy change could be overturned by the Constitutional Tribunal, "all of whose current judges were appointed under PiS."
Since the "politically compromised" tribunal's 2020 judgment, the Polish government has abused "its powers to chase down alleged abortion-related activity threatens people's rights to privacy, autonomy, and health," according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). The group's September report shared stories of doctors as well as women and girls harassed by law enforcement.
When that HRW report was released, observers warned that similar crackdowns could occur in the United States, where GOP policymakers in over a dozen states—including Texas—have imposed near-total bans on abortion since the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision last year.
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that could limit access to abortion pills nationwide and the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court ruled that Kate Cox could not obtain an abortion in the state despite a lethal fetal diagnosis. Like M.L. in Poland, Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two, had to travel to receive abortion care.
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'Truly Historic' Youth-Led Climate Case Arrives at European Human Rights Court
Six Portuguese young people are suing the governments of 33 countries, arguing their human rights have been violated by a widespread failure to mitigate the climate crisis.
Sep 27, 2023
Lawyers for six Portuguese children and young adults on Wednesday expressed hope that their unprecedented climate case, brought to the European Court of Human Rights three years after it was first filed, will ultimately be a "game-changer" that forces governments in Europe and across the globe to take decisive action to address the climate emergency.
Ranging in age from 11 to 24, the six plaintiffs sat on Wednesday before nearly two dozen human rights judges and attorneys representing nearly three dozen nations, determined to prove to the court that countries across Europe have violated their fundamental rights by allowing greenhouse gas emissions to continue heating the planet despite warnings from energy experts and scientists.
In Duarte Agostinho v. Portugal and 32 Others, the plaintiffs are seeking not financial relief but a ruling from the court that would compel the governments of the 27 E.U. member-nations as well as Russia, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, and Turkey to speed up their efforts to keep planetary heating below 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
Because the human rights court's rulings are legally binding for E.U. members, a decision in favor of the young plaintiffs "would act like a binding treaty imposed by the court on the respondents, requiring them to rapidly accelerate their climate mitigation efforts," Gerry Liston of the U.K.-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), told the Associated Press.
"In legal terms, it would be a game-changer," Liston told the outlet.
Four of the plaintiffs live in central Portugal, where wildfires killed at least 66 people in 2017. The country faced more blazes this summer—the hottest on record—as well as a record-breaking heatwave which saw the temperature in the central region of the country rise to 46.4°C (115.5°F), which at least one plaintiff said had interfered with schoolwork, and which climate scientists said would not have happened without planetary heating and fossil fuel extraction.
"Without urgent action to cut emissions, [the place] where I live will soon become an unbearable furnace," 20-year-old Martim Agostinho, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
Lawyers for the defendants claimed the group should have litigated the case in the domestic court system, with Belgian legal expert Isabelle Niedlispacher arguing before the court that the plaintiffs did not make an attempt "to invoke, let alone exhaust domestic remedies."
But GLAN, which says it "pursues innovative legal actions across borders," dismissed the claims, noting that the fossil-fueled climate emergency and the extreme weather it's causing have no respect for countries' boundaries and are placing the entire planet at risk.
"It cannot be within a state's discretion whether or not to act to prevent catastrophic climate destruction," said Alison MacDonald, another attorney representing the young people.
Sébastien Duyck, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, called the case "truly historic" because the governments of dozens of countries have been compelled to respond.
"These governments are forced to lay out a legal defense justifying the gap between their climate policies and what science says is needed to avoid climate breakdown," said Duyck. "In the broader context of global litigation, this case wields remarkable influence, given that the European Court of Human Rights holds a prominent role in setting legal precedents within Europe and beyond."
The case was brought to the court a month after a state judge in Montana sided with 16 young residents who argued that the state had violated their rights by promoting fossil fuel extraction. The United Nations Environment Program released a report in July showing that climate litigation has emerged as an important driver of far-reaching, concrete action by governments to reduce emissions.
Gearoid O'Cuinn, another lawyer for GLAN, said defendants resorted to "climate denialism" when they argued, as Greece did, that the "effects of climate change, as recorded so far, do not seem to directly affect human life or human health."
Greece has faced both deadly wildfires and flooding in recent weeks.
"European governments' climate policies are consistent with a catastrophic 3° of global heating this century," said Liston. "For the brave youth-applicants, that is a life sentence of heat extremes which are unimaginable even by today's rapidly deteriorating standards."
"The European Court of Human Rights was set up following the horrors of World War II to hold European governments to account for failing to protect human rights," Liston added. "Never has there been as urgent a need for the court to do so than in this case."
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UN Affirms Climate Crisis Threatens Children's Rights, Potentially Bolstering Youth-Led Lawsuits
"States should take positive measures to ensure that children are protected from foreseeable premature or unnatural death and threats to their lives," reads the updated document
Aug 28, 2023
A group of children in Portugal who are expected to present arguments in a climate case at the European Court of Human Rights next month may have a stronger legal standing following a formal opinion issued Monday by a United Nations committee, which affirms that the climate, biodiversity, and pollution crises present "an urgent and systemic threat to children's rights globally."
After consulting with more than 16,000 children in more than 120 countries, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child updated the 1989 Convention on children's rights to say that there is an urgent need to address the "triple planetary crisis" and to explain "how children's rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child apply to environmental protection, and confirms that children have a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment."
"The right to life is threatened by environmental degradation, including climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss, which are closely linked to other fundamental challenges impeding the realization of this right, including poverty, inequality, and conflict," reads the document, which was updated after a two-year period of gathering input from children around the world. "States should take positive measures to ensure that children are protected from foreseeable premature or unnatural death and threats to their lives that may be caused by acts and omissions, as well as the activities of business actors, and enjoy their right to life with dignity."
The formal opinion—called General Comment No. 26—and updated document were released four weeks before the Portuguese case is set to go to court, where six children are preparing to argue that the 33 member-states of the European Union have failed to fight the climate crisis and to seek a legally binding decision requiring the countries to make immediate, deeper cuts to their fossil fuel emissions.
At least 19 other cases filed by youths in countries including Brazil, the United States, and Indonesia make similar arguments, and legal analysts said Monday that the updated treaty may help the young people in court.
"This could definitely strengthen their hand because now there's a fully articulated set of guidance that pulls everything together in one place," lawyer Ann Skelton, who chairs the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, told Reuters.
Noam Peleg, a law professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, wrote at The Conversation that the changes offer "a practical guide to help children" fight their government's continued support of planet-heating fossil fuels and clarifies that governments have an obligation to protect children from the climate emergency as part of their duty to defend human rights.
"The general comment also identifies children as agents in their own lives," said Peleg. "By extension, this means children have a right to participate in the drafting of environmental policies or laws that will affect them."
As Common Dreams reported last month, climate litigation has emerged in recent years as a key driver of climate justice.
The committee's changes were announced two weeks after a state judge in Montana ruled that the state violated the constitutional rights of 16 young residents by promoting fossil fuel extraction.
"Children worldwide have been leading the fight against climate change; calling on their governments and corporations to take action to protect the planet and their future," said David Boyd, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and the environment. "With its General Comment No. 26, the Committee on the Rights of the Child not only echoes and amplifies children's voices, but also clearly defines the rights of children in relation to the environment that state parties should respect, protect and fulfill collectively and urgently."
Some young people and advocates who were consulted by the committee had pushed the panel to put the world's children in an even stronger legal position by calling on countries to take action beyond that which is demanded by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which calls for emissions cuts that would limit planetary heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial temperatures.
Kelly Matheson, deputy director of global climate litigation at Our Children's Trust—which represented the children in the Montana case—told Reuters that the new document represents "such a missed opportunity."
"It's an exercise in incrementalism instead of taking quantum leap forward," Matheson said.
Committee member Philip Jaffé told Reuters that climate leader Greta Thunberg, who at 15 began a protest outside the Swedish Parliament that grew into the global school strike demanding climate action, had called on the panel "to be more vigorous and somewhat bolder."
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After UK Rejects Appeal, Press Freedom Groups Say Biden Must Drop Assange Extradition Push
"If Biden lets this case proceed," said one advocate, "future administrations will surely use the precedent of the Assange prosecution... to go after journalists they don't like."
Jun 08, 2023
Press freedom groups on Thursday said that following the United Kingdom High Court's rejection of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's appeal against his extradition order to the United States, U.S. President Joe Biden has a choice to make: continue with the federal case against the publisher or stand on the side of journalists everywhere and drop the charges against Assange.
High Court Judge Jonathan Swift on Tuesday handed down the decision rejecting Assange's appeal of an extradition order that was signed a year ago by U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel, leaving Assange's legal team with less than a week to submit another appeal to a panel of two judges.
The judges could convene a public hearing on the case of Assange, who has been charged in the U.S. with violating the 1917 Espionage Act for publishing classified military documents that revealed the United States' alleged war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Press freedom and human rights groups have maintained that Assange has been prosecuted for publicizing government information just as newspapers routinely do and have demanded that the White House drop the charges.
"The idea of Assange or anyone being tried in a U.S. court for obtaining and publishing confidential documents the same way investigative reporters do every day should be terrifying to all Americans," said Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation. "It's time for Biden to drop this case and show the world he's serious about press freedom."
The Daily Mail reported Thursday that the U.K. Home Office is currently preparing paperwork to rapidly extradite Assange and that he could be sent to the U.S. "in the next few weeks."
Human rights lawyer Stella Assange, who is married to the WikiLeaks publisher, said Assange will "make a renewed application for appeal to the High Court."
"We remain optimistic that we will prevail and that Julian will not be extradited to the United States where he faces charges that could result in him spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison for publishing true information that revealed war crimes committed by the U.S. government," she said.
Assange's extradition was originally blocked in 2021 when a Westminster Magistrate Court judge ruled that he should not be sent to the U.S. because of the risk that being held in an American maximum security prison would pose to Assange's mental health.
The High Court overturned that ruling after the U.S. claimed Assange would not be held in highly restrictive prison conditions.
Christophe Deloire, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), denounced the continued prosecution of Assange as "judicial harassment" and "an attack on global media freedom."
Along with the possibility of a ruling by the High Court in Assange's favor, the European Court of Human Rights could block the extradition following the journalist's appeal to the court last year.
Rebecca Vincent, director of campaigns for RSF, called on Biden to take action instead of leaving it up to British and European judges, in order to end a case that could "land Julian Assange in prison for the rest of his life and permanently impact the climate for journalism around the world."
"The historical weight of what happens next cannot be overstated," said Vincent. "It is time to put a stop to this relentless targeting of Assange and act instead to protect journalism and press freedom. Our call on President Biden is now more urgent than ever: Drop these charges, close the case against Assange, and allow for his release without further delay."
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European Human Rights Court Hears Historic Climate Case Brought by Elderly Swiss Women
"We are suing for our human right to life," said one 78-year-old plaintiff. "With this case, we want to help spur politicians into action a little bit."
Mar 29, 2023
The European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday heard arguments in a case brought by a group of elderly Swiss women who are suing their country's government, alleging that its "current climate targets and measures are not sufficient to limit global warming to a safe level."
Members of Senior Women for Climate Protection (KlimaSeniorinnen) and their attorneys appeared in the Strasbourg, France court for the tribunal's first-ever climate case. Outside the court, activists from the group and from other organizations including Greenpeace held banners and flowers and chanted "bravo" as each woman exited the building, according to SwissInfo.
"We are suing for our human right to life," Lore Zablonier, a 78-year-old from Zurich, told The Associated Press outside the court. "With this case, we want to help spur politicians into action a little bit."
As KlimaSeniorinnen's website explains:
Climate change already produces extensive damage. Menacing heatwaves, landslides, and floods will become the norm unless we take immediate action. Scientific insights notwithstanding, Switzerland along with most other countries is not doing as much as is necessary to avert such disasters. Because governments, through their inaction, violate basic rights, more and more people around the globe are taking them to court. What's at stake is a livable future—without climate collapse.
A growing number of climate-related cases are on the docket in courts around the world, from Australia to Sweden to the United States. The European Court of Human Rights will hear at least two more climate cases this year—one filed by a group of Portuguese youth and the other by a Green member of the European Parliament from France.
Switzerland is warming at a rate of more than twice the global mean. According to the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology:
The strong warming has an impact on many other climate indices in Switzerland. For instance, the zero-degree line has climbed substantially, which has resulted in Alpine glaciers losing over 60% of their volume since 1850. It is likely that they will no longer be part of the Alpine landscape by the end of this century. The vegetation period now lasts several weeks longer in the lowlands than it did even in the 1960s. Due to warming, precipitation now falls more often as rain than snow.
In 2021, Swiss voters narrowly rejected a government proposal to tax automobile fuel and airline tickets in a bid to help the country meet its targets under the Paris climate agreement. Switzerland is responsible for about 0.1% of global emissions.
(Image: Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology)
A verdict in the suit filed by KlimaSeniorinnen is expected next year.
"Should we win... a better climate policy will help less the lives of senior people than those of our children and grandchildren," explained plaintiff Elisabeth Stern.
"Are we older women victims? Yes, in the sense of being personally affected and at increased health risk from increasing temperatures," Stern added. "But we are also highly competent agents of change. Because our climate complaint for the first time puts the European Court of Human Rights in the situation to comment on the climate protection measures of a member state. And on the question of whether climate action to protect citizens is a fundamental human right."
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