STRASBOURG, France: Europe’s top human rights court ruled on Tuesday (Apr 9) that the Swiss government had violated the human rights of its citizens by failing to do enough to combat climate change, a decision that will set a precedent for future climate lawsuits.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling, in favour of the more than 2,000 Swiss women who brought the case, is expected to resonate in court decisions across Europe and beyond and to embolden more communities to bring climate cases against governments.
But in a sign of the complexities of the growing wave of climate litigation, the court rejected two other climate-related cases on procedural grounds. One of these was brought by a group of six Portuguese young people against 32 European governments and another by a former mayor of a low-lying French coastal town.
The Swiss women, known as KlimaSeniorinnen and aged over 64, said their government’s climate inaction put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. They argued their age and gender made them particularly vulnerable to such climate change impacts.
In her ruling, Court President Siofra O’Leary said the Swiss government had failed to comply with its own targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and had failed to set a national carbon budget.
“It is clear that future generations are likely to bear an increasingly severe burden of the consequences of present failures and omissions to combat climate change,” O’Leary said.
One of KlimaSeniorinnen’s leaders, Rosmarie Wydler-Wälti said she was struggling to grasp the full extent of the decision.
“We keep asking our lawyers, ‘Is that right?’ And they tell us, ‘it’s the most you could have had. The biggest victory possible’.”
The Swiss Federal Office of Justice, which represented the Swiss government at the court, took note of the ruling.
“Together with the authorities concerned, we will now analyse the extensive judgment and review what measures Switzerland will take in the future,” it said in a statement.
