Older Swiss women just set a global legal precedent for challenging their nation’s climate change policy

By Aoife Daly, University College Cork

The European Court of Human Rights has issued a groundbreaking ruling in a case between a group of Swiss women and their government. It found that Switzerland is in violation of the European convention on human rights for failing in its duties to combat climate change. The court also set out a path for organisations to bring further cases.

I have been researching human rights for over 20 years and this is one of the biggest wins for rights on the defining issue of our times – the climate crisis.

This case was the first opportunity for the court to consider the duties of states in the context of climate change, and the first climate change case to be heard by an international human rights court. The decision will have a ripple effect across Europe and beyond, as it sets a binding precedent for how courts should deal with the rising tide of litigation in which it is argued that the climate crisis involves human rights violations.

The court calls itself “the conscience of Europe” and its rulings apply in 46 member states, which includes all the EU, plus the UK and various other non-EU countries. Its ruling opens up all these states to similar cases in their own national courts – cases that these states are likely to lose.

The court held that the European convention requires states to seek to be carbon neutral within three decades, and take adequate interim measures to achieve this. Switzerland was failing to do so.

Those who took the case are the KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz, a group of 2,400 Swiss women over age 64, who argued that because older women are more likely to die in heatwaves Switzerland must take greater action to prevent the planet heating beyond the Paris agreement target of 1.5°C. Heatwaves, the KlimaSeniorinnen argued, have become hotter and more common because of fossil fuels.

Read Full Story https://theconversation.com/older-swiss-women-just-set-a-global-legal-precedent-for-challenging-their-nations-climate-change-policy-227629