Human Rights Court: Government Doing Nothing About Climate Damage Is Punishable

The ruling on climate damage caused by government negligence is seen as a logical continuation of previous decisions in environmental cases, and is now regarded as a “historic” precedent related to the climate crisis, observers say.

This case was brought by an association of elderly Swiss citizens concerned about the impact of global warming on their health, who claim that the Swiss government is not taking sufficient action. They argued that their government’s policies are “clearly inadequate” to keep global warming under the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit established in the Paris Agreement. 

The court in Luxembourg ruled that the Swiss federal state had not met its obligations under the Climate Change Convention. The judgment bears strong similarities to two earlier rulings by Dutch courts, which convicted the Dutch state and oil company Shell after complaints from environmental organizations for insufficient action against greenhouse gas emissions.

A similar complaint by Portuguese youths was rejected by the ECHR. Their case was filed not only against Portugal but also against all EU member states, as well as Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Great Britain, and Russia. This geographic scope rendered their complaint inadmissible. The ECHR judged that the Convention contains no grounds for the “extraterritorial jurisdiction” sought by the applicants.

A third case was brought by the former mayor of the French city of Grande-Synthe, Damien Carême. He complained about the ‘shortcomings’ of the French government, which put his city at risk due to rising sea levels. However, the judges rejected his ‘victim status’ because he no longer resides in France—having moved to Brussels as a member of the European Parliament.

note: the headline above this article has been adjusted to clarify that this is not a ruling from an EU court in Luxembourg, but from the European Court of Human Rights