While the judgment itself doesn’t include any penalties — the case featured several women accusing Switzerland of failing to shield them from climate dangers — it does establish a potent precedent that people can use to sue governments in national courts.
The verdict will serve “as a blueprint for how to successfully sue your own government over climate failures,” said Ruth Delbaere, a legal specialist at Avaaz, a U.S.-based nonprofit that promotes climate activism.
Even the court’s simultaneous dismissal Tuesday of two other climate cases, including a high-profile one from Portuguese activists taking on 30-plus countries at once, didn’t dampen the mood among climate advocates. Those cases, legal experts argued, were mostly rebuffed on technical grounds; the judges even effectively told the Portuguese activists to try their case in Portugal before returning to the Strasbourg-based human rights court.
“The court is basically telling the plaintiffs whose actions were dismissed how to proceed next time,” said Alberto Alemanno, an EU law specialist and professor.
Courting the courts on climate
The European Court of Human Rights was established in the decade following World War II but has grown in importance over the last generation. As the judicial arm of the Council of Europe, an international human rights organization, the court’s rulings are binding on the council’s 46 members, spanning all of Europe and numerous countries on its borders.
As a result, Tuesday’s ruling will help elevate climate litigation from a country-by-country battle to one that stretches across continents.
