STRASBOURG, France (CN) — Climate activists took home a big win on Tuesday, as Europe’s top rights court faulted Switzerland for not acting aggressively enough against climate change.
The European Court of Human Rights sided with a group of senior Swiss women who argued their government violated their rights by failing to protect them from the impact of a warming planet in the first international court decision on climate change.
“The court has now confirmed to us that we are right and … they have not done enough in Switzerland,” Pia Hollendstein told Courthouse News after the ruling. The 73-year-old is a board member of the Senior Women for Climate Protection, which lodged the complaint with the Strasbourg-based court.
Attendees whooped and cheered as Hollendstein and her fellow board members emerged from the courtroom.
The 17 judges tossed out two other climate change cases — one brought by six Portuguese young people, the other by a French mayor — for technical reasons.
“Even though the ruling didn’t go our way and we’re disappointed, I’m proud today of what we’ve achieved because the judges recognized that climate change is an existential threat to humanity and an intergenerational challenge,” 21-year-old Martim Duarte Agostinho told reporters after the hearing.
The court stopped short of setting targets for Switzerland. "Measures to combat climate change require legislative actions," Judge Siofra O’Leary said while reading out the decision.
The Swiss government said it would study the ruling to see what actions it would need to take. “This is a decision for the national government,” lawyer Alain Chablais, who represented Switzerland, told CNS after the judgement was announced.
In all three cases, plaintiffs wanted an order to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Accords. The United Nations agreement, signed by 195 countries, aims to keep the increase in global temperature to below 2°C, or 3.6°F, by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“It is a huge win,” Corina Heri, a researcher in environmental law at the University of Zurich, told CNS after the hearing. She says that the decision will set a precedent for all European countries.
Founded in 1959, the court governs the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the civil and political rights of Europeans. All of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, which oversees the court, could now face similar legal challenges.
"These rulings are a call to action. They underscore the importance of taking our national governments to court," climate activist Greta Thunberg, who attended the hearing, told reporters.
The Strasbourg cases are just the latest legal battles to be waged over climate change. Climate activists in the Netherlands and Germany have succeeded in bringing cases against their governments for failing to act. The Dutch Supreme Court ordered the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, in the landmark Urgenda decision.
Last year, 132 countries signed on to a request from the United Nations General Assembly seeking an advisory opinion from the United Nation's highest court, the International Court of Justice, on climate change. While not binding, such opinions carry substantial legal weight.
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