Legal summary
April 2024
Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland [GC] - 53600/20
Judgment 9.4.2024 [GC]
Article 8
Positive obligations
Article 8-1
Respect for family life
Respect for private life
Respondent State’s failure to comply with positive obligation to combat climate change: Article 8 applicable; violation
Article 6
Administrative proceedings
Civil proceedings
Article 6-1
Access to court
Civil rights and obligations
Lack of effective access to court in respect of applicant association’s complaint concerning effective implementation of mitigation measures under domestic law: Article 6 applicable; violation
Article 34
Locus standi
Victim
Victim status of individual applicants and standing (locus standi) of applicant association regarding climate-change complaints: inadmissible in respect of individual applicants; standing of applicant association upheld
Facts – The applicants are, on the one hand, an association under Swiss law established to promote and implement effective climate protection on behalf of its members, who are more than 2,000 older women (the majority of whom are over the age of 70) and on the other, four women, all members of the association and aged over 80, who complain of health problems that are exacerbated during heatwaves, significantly affecting their lives, living conditions and health.
The applicants’ requests to a number of authorities, alleging various failures in the area of climate protection and seeking the implementation of measures within the competence of the respective authorities in the field of climate change, as well as a decision on actions to be taken, including measures to meet the 2030 goal set by the Paris Agreement, were dismissed. They appealed unsuccessfully up to the Federal Supreme Court.
Relying on Articles 2 and 8 of the Convention, the applicants complain of various failures by the Swiss authorities to mitigate climate change – and in particular the effect of global warming – which adversely affects the lives, living conditions and health of the individual applicants and members of the applicant association. In that context they allege that the State failed to introduce suitable legislation and to put appropriate and sufficient measures in place to attain the targets for combating climate change, in line with its international commitments. The applicants also complain of lack of a access to a court, for the purposes of Article 6 § 1, concerning the State’s failure to take necessary action to tackle the adverse effects of climate change.
On 26 April 2022 a Chamber of the Court relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber.
Law –
(1) Preliminary issues –
(a) The second applicant – The eldest of the applicants died during the proceedings before the Court. Her son, who was her legal heir, had standing to continue the proceedings in her stead.
(b) Scope of the complaint – The applicants’ complaint raised in their additional observations in the proceedings before the Chamber on the issue of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated abroad and attributing to Switzerland through the import of goods for household consumption and as such forming part of Switzerland’s “embedded emissions” fell within the scope of the case without prejudice to the examination of the actual effects of such emissions on the State’s responsibility under the Convention. In that connection, the Court noted that it had been accepted in the reports by the relevant Swiss authorities and elsewhere, that the GHG emissions attributable to Switzerland through the import of goods and their consumption formed a significant part of the overall Swiss GHG footprint. It would thus be difficult, if not impossible to discuss Switzerland’s responsibility for the effects of its GHG emissions on the applicants’ rights without taking into account “embedded emissions”.
Conclusion: preliminary objection dismissed (unanimously).
(c) Jurisdiction – All the applicants were residents of Switzerland, and thus under its territorial jurisdiction, which meant that under Article 1 of the Convention Switzerland had to answer for any infringement attributable to it of the rights and freedoms protected by the Convention in respect of the applicants. Although the applicants’ complaint as to “embedded emissions” contained an extraterritorial aspect, that did not raise an issue of Switzerland’s jurisdiction in respect of the applicants, but rather one of its responsibility for the alleged effects of those emissions on the applicants’ Convention rights. The issue of responsibility, however, was a separate matter to be examined, if necessary, in relation to the merits of the complaint.
Conclusion: preliminary objection dismissed (unanimously).
(2) Alleged violations of Articles 2 and 8 –
(a) Preliminary points – At the outset, the Court noted that climate change was one of the most pressing issues of our times. While the primary cause of climate change arose from the accumulation of GHG in the Earth’s atmosphere, the resulting consequences for the environment, and its adverse effects on the living conditions of various human communities and individuals, were complex and multiple. The Court, however, could deal with the issues arising from climate change only within the limits of the exercise of its competence under Article 19 of the Convention, which was to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken by the High Contracting Parties to the Convention and its Protocols. In that regard, the Court had to remain mindful of the fact that to a large extent measures designed to combat climate change and its adverse effects required legislative action both in terms of the policy framework and in various sectoral fields. Judicial intervention, including by this Court, could not replace or provide any substitute for the action which had to be taken by the legislative and executive branches of government. The task of the domestic courts and the Court was to ensure the necessary judicial oversight of compliance with legal requirements.
At the same time, the inadequacy of past State action to combat climate change globally aggravated the risks of adverse consequences and the ensuing threats for the enjoyment of human rights – threats already recognised by governments worldwide. The current situation therefore involved compelling present‑day conditions, confirmed by scientific knowledge, which the Court could not ignore in its role as a judicial body tasked with the enforcement of human rights.
The present case, along with the cases of Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and others [GC] and Carême v. France [GC] that had been heard by the same composition of the Grand Chamber, raised unprecedented issues before the Court which entailed different legal questions to those addressed in its environmental case‑law to date. The existing case‑law concerned situations involving specific sources from which environmental harm emanated whereas in the climate-change context, the key characteristics and circumstances were significantly different. After enumerating the fundamental differences, the Court concluded that it would be neither adequate nor appropriate to directly transpose the existing environmental case‑law to the context of climate change. Accordingly, while drawing some inspiration from the principles set out in that case-law, the Court sought to develop a more appropriate and tailored approach as regards the various Convention issues which might arise in the context of climate change.
In that respect, account had to be taken of the existing and constantly developing scientific evidence on the necessity of combating climate change and the urgency of addressing its adverse effects, including the grave risk of their inevitability and their irreversibility, as well as the scientific, political and judicial recognition of a link between the adverse effects of climate change and the enjoyment of (various aspects of) human rights.
The Court also noted that while the legal obligations arising for States under the Convention extended to those individuals currently alive who, at a given time, fell within the jurisdiction of a given Contracting Party, it was clear that future generations were likely to bear an increasingly severe burden of the consequences of present failures and omissions to combat climate change and that, at the same time, they had no possibility of participating in the relevant current decision‑making processes. Intergenerational burden‑sharing thus assumed particular importance in this context. By their commitment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the States Parties had undertaken the obligation to protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind.
(b) General considerations relating to climate‑change cases –
(i) Questions of causation – The specificity of climate‑change disputes arose from the fact that they were not concerned with single‑source local environmental issues but with a more complex global problem. In the context of human rights‑based complaints against States, issues of causation arose in different respects which were distinct from each other and had a bearing on the assessment of victim status as well as the substantive aspects of the State’s obligations and responsibility under the Convention. There were four distinct dimensions to the causation question in this context which related to:
– the link between GHG emissions – and the resulting accumulation of GHG in the global atmosphere and the various phenomena of climate change; a matter of scientific knowledge and assessment.
– the link between the various adverse effects of the consequences of climate change, and the risks of such effects on the enjoyment of human rights at present and in the future.
– the link, at the individual level, between a harm, or risk of harm, allegedly affecting specific persons or groups of persons, and the acts or omissions of State authorities against which a human rights‑based complaint was directed.
- the attributability of responsibility regarding the adverse effects arising from climate change claimed by individuals or groups against a particular State, given that multiple actors contributed to the aggregate amounts and effects of GHG emissions.
(ii) Issues of proof – The evidential standard of proof was ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. The Court referred to the principles set in its case-law in that respect. A mere allegation that the State had failed to comply with certain domestic rules and environmental or technical standards was not in itself sufficient to ground the assertion that the applicant’s rights had been affected in a manner giving rise to an issue under the Convention. Nevertheless, the Court attached importance to whether the situation complained of had breached the relevant domestic law. Moreover, the Court noted that it might need to have regard to the relevant international standards concerning the effects of environmental pollution when ascertaining whether the rights of an individual had been affected and that it relied on studies and reports by relevant international bodies as regards the environmental impacts on individuals and in particular, as regards climate change. In that connection it pointed to the particular importance of the reports prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which provided scientific guidance on climate change regionally and globally, its impact and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation.
Lastly, the Court attached particular importance to the findings of the domestic courts and other competent authorities in establishing the factual circumstances of the case; it might depart from them where that was rendered unavoidable by the circumstances of a particular case.
(iii) Effects of climate change on the enjoyment of human rights – The Court proceeded with its assessment on the issues that arose in the present case by taking it as a matter of fact that there were sufficiently reliable indications that anthropogenic climate change existed, that it posed a serious current and future threat to the enjoyment of human rights guaranteed under the Convention, that States were aware of it and capable of taking measures to effectively address it, that the relevant risks were projected to be lower if the rise in temperature was limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and if action was taken urgently, and that current global mitigation efforts were not sufficient to meet the latter target.
(iv) The question of causation and positive obligations in the climate-change context – The Court observed that the particularity of the issue of causation became more accentuated in the climate-change context; the causal link between the acts or omissions on the part of State authorities in one country, and the harm, or risk of harm, arising there, was necessarily more tenuous and indirect compared to that in the context of local sources of harmful pollution. Furthermore, from the perspective of human rights, the essence of the relevant State duties in the context of climate change related to the reduction of the risks of harm for individuals. Conversely, failures in the performance of those duties entailed an aggravation of the risks involved, although the individual exposures to such risks would vary in terms of type, severity and imminence, depending on a range of circumstances. Accordingly, in this context, issues of individual victim status or the specific content of State obligations could not be determined on the basis of a strict conditio sine qua non requirement.
(v) The issue of the proportion of State responsibility – While climate change was undoubtedly a global phenomenon which should be addressed at the global level by the community of States, the global climate regime established under the UNFCCC, as reaffirmed by other international instruments, rested on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities of States. Consequently, each State had its own share of responsibilities to take measures to tackle climate change and that the taking of those measures was determined by the State’s own capabilities rather than by any specific action (or omission) of any other State).
In addition – as regards the “drop in the ocean” argument (namely, the capacity of individual States to affect global climate change) the relevant test did not require it to be shown that “but for” the failing or omission of the authorities the harm would not have occurred. Rather, what was important, and sufficient to engage the responsibility of the State, was that reasonable measures which the domestic authorities failed to take could have had a real prospect of altering the outcome or mitigating the harm. In the context of climate change, that principle should also be understood in the light of Article 3 § 3 of the UNFCCC according to which States should take measures to anticipate, prevent or minimise the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects.
(c) Admissibility – The Court elaborated on the general principles concerning victim status separately. Given, however, the close link between victim status and the applicability of the relevant Convention provisions, it joined the issue of victim status/locus standi to its assessment of the applicability of Articles 2 and 8.
(i) General principles on victim status/locus standi in the climate-change context –
(α) Victim status of individuals – There was cogent scientific evidence demonstrating that climate change had already contributed to an increase in morbidity and mortality, especially among certain more vulnerable groups, that it actually created such effects and that, in the absence of resolute action by States, it risked progressing to the point of being irreversible and disastrous. At the same time, the States, being in control of the causes of anthropogenic climate change, had acknowledged the adverse effects of climate change and had committed themselves – in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and their respective capabilities – to take the necessary mitigation measures (to reduce GHG emissions) and adaptation measures (to adapt to climate change and reduce its impacts). Those considerations indicated that a legally relevant relationship of causation might exist between State actions or omissions (causing or failing to address climate change) and the harm affecting individuals.
The question for the Court in the present case was how and to what extent allegations of harm linked to State actions and/or omissions in the context of climate change, affecting individuals’ Convention rights (such as the right to life under Article 2 and/or the right to respect for private and family life under Article 8), could be examined without undermining the exclusion of actio popularis from the Convention system and without ignoring the nature of the Court’s judicial function, which was by definition reactive rather than proactive.
The Court’s case-law on victim status was premised on the existence of a direct impact of the impugned action or omission on the applicant or a real risk thereof. However, in the climate-change context, everyone might be, one way or another and to some degree, directly affected, or at a real risk of being directly affected, by the adverse effects of climate change thus a potentially a huge number of persons could claim victim status under the Convention on this basis. In that regard, although the lack of State action, or insufficient action, to combat climate change did entail a situation with general effect, the Court did not consider that the case-law concerning “potential” victims under which victim status could be claimed by a “class of people” who have “a legitimate personal interest” in seeing the impugned situation being brought to an end could be applied in this context; that could cover virtually anybody and would therefore not work as a limiting criterion.
Therefore, having regard to the special features of climate change, the exclusion of actio popularis under the Convention but also the need to ensure effective protection of the Convention rights, in the context of complaints concerning harm or risk of harm resulting from alleged failures by the State to combat climate change, applicants needed to show that were personally and directly affected by the impugned failures. That depended on two key criteria for which the threshold was especially high:
– first, the applicant must be subject to a high intensity of exposure to the adverse effects of climate change, that is, the level and severity of (the risk of) adverse consequences of governmental action or inaction affecting the applicant must be significant; and
– second, there must be a pressing need to ensure the applicant’s individual protection, owing to the absence or inadequacy of any reasonable measures to reduce harm.
(β) Standing of associations – The Court recalled its observations in Gorraiz Lizarraga and Others v. Spain concerning the importance of recourse to collective entities such as associations to defend the rights and interests of affected or concerned individuals, as far as issues of the environment were concerned, were reflected in international instruments and in particular the Aarhus Convention. That Convention emphasised the importance of the role which non-governmental organisations played in the context of environmental protection and the EU had developed a set of legal instruments concerning its implementation.
While the standing of associations in the context of climate-change litigation – which was not covered by the Aarhus Convention – was still a developing issue, it transpired from the material available to the Court that in most member States there might at least be a theoretical possibility for environmental associations to bring a climate-change case, and in some States the criteria for such standing had already been established either in domestic legislation or in the domestic courts’ case-law.
The specific considerations relating to climate change, its special feature of being a common concern of humankind and the necessity of promoting intergenerational burden-sharing in this context, all weighed in favour of recognising the standing of associations before the Court in climate-change cases. In that specific context, it was important to make allowance for recourse to legal action by associations for the purpose of seeking the protection of the human rights of those affected, as well as those at risk of being affected, by the adverse effects of climate change, instead of exclusively relying on proceedings brought by each individual on his or her own behalf.
For an association to have the right to act on behalf of individuals and to lodge an application on account of the alleged failure of a Contracting State to take adequate measures to protect them against the adverse effects of climate change on human lives and health, the Court held that three criteria had to be fulfilled:
– first, it had to be lawfully established in the jurisdiction concerned or have standing to act there;
– second, it had to demonstrate that it pursued a dedicated purpose in accordance with its statutory objectives in the defence of the human rights of its members or other affected individuals within the jurisdiction concerned, whether limited to or including collective action for the protection of those rights against the threats arising from climate change;
– third, it had to demonstrate that it could be regarded as genuinely qualified and representative to act on behalf of members or other affected individuals within the jurisdiction who were subject to specific threats or adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health or well-being as protected under the Convention.
In that connection, the Court would have regard to factors such as the purpose for which the association had been established, that it was of non-profit character, the nature and extent of its activities within the relevant jurisdiction, its membership and representativeness, its principles and transparency of governance and whether on the whole, in the particular circumstances of a case, the grant of such standing was in the interests of the proper administration of justice. The standing of an association to act on behalf of the members or other affected individuals within the jurisdiction concerned was not subject to a separate requirement that those on whose behalf the case had been brought would themselves meet the victim-status requirements for individuals in the climate-change context. The Court might also, in the interests of the proper administration of justice, consider whether, and to what extent, its individual members or other affected individuals might have enjoyed access to a court in the same or related domestic proceedings.
(ii) Application of those principles to the present case –
(α) Applicability of Article 8 – Article 8 encompassed a right for individuals to effective protection by the State authorities from serious adverse effects of climate change on their life, health, well-being and quality of life. The criteria set out in the instant case concerning the victim status of individuals or the standing of associations were determinative for establishing whether Article 8 rights were at stake and whether that provision applied; those matters had to be examined on the facts of a particular case and on the basis of the available evidence.
– Τhe applicant association – In the circumstances of the present case and taking account all the relevant factors, the Court found that the applicant association fulfilled the relevant criteria and thus had the necessary legal standing to act on behalf of its members in the case and that Article 8 was applicable to its complaint.
– The individual applicants case – Having carefully considered the nature and scope of the individual applicants’ complaints and the material submitted by them, and a careful consideration of the circumstances the degree of likelihood and/or probability of the adverse effects of climate change in time, the specific impact on each individual applicant’s life, health or well-being, the magnitude and duration of the harmful effects, the scope of the risk (localised or general), and the nature of the applicants’ vulnerability, the Court found that the four individual applicants did not fulfil the victim-status criteria under Article 34.
In particular, while the applicants belonged to a group which was particularly susceptible to the effects of climate change, it was not apparent from the available materials that they had been exposed to the adverse effects of climate change or were at risk of being exposed at any relevant point in the future, with a degree of intensity giving rise to a pressing need to ensure their individual protection. Nor could it be said that they suffered from any critical medical condition whose possible aggravation linked to heatwaves could not be alleviated by the adaptation measures available in Switzerland or by means of reasonable measures of personal adaptation given the extent of heatwaves affecting that country. Victim status in relation to future risk was only exceptionally admitted by the Court. They had further failed to demonstrate that exceptional circumstances for victim status in relation to future risk. Lastly, the fifth applicant had not to establish a correlation between her asthma and her complaints before the Court.
Conclusion: preliminary objection dismissed in relation to applicant association (locus standi) (sixteen votes to one); preliminary objection upheld in relation to individual applicants (victim status), inadmissible (unanimously); Article 8 applicable; admissible (sixteen votes to one).
(β) Applicability of Article 2 – In view of its finding that Article 8 applied to the applicant association’s complaint, the Court decided not to examine the case from the angle for Article 2. It had regard, however, to the principles developed under the latter Article, which to a very large extent were similar to those under Article 8 and which, when seen together, provided a useful basis for defining the overall approach to be applied in the climate-change context under both provisions.
(d) Merits –
(i) The States’ positive obligations in the context of climate change –
(α) The States’ margin of appreciation – States enjoyed a certain margin of appreciation in this area. A distinction had to be drawn, however between the scope of the margin as regards, on the one hand, the State’s commitment to the necessity of combating climate change and its adverse effects, and the setting of the requisite aims and objectives in this respect, and, on the other hand, the choice of means designed to achieve those objectives. As regards the former aspect, the nature and gravity of the threat and the general consensus as to the stakes involved in ensuring the overarching goal of effective climate protection through overall GHG reduction targets in accordance with the Contracting Parties’ accepted commitments to achieve carbon neutrality, called for a reduced margin of appreciation for the States. As regards the latter aspect, namely their choice of means, including operational choices and policies adopted to meet internationally anchored targets and commitments in the light of priorities and resources, the States should be accorded a wide margin of appreciation.
(β) Content of the States’ positive obligation – A contracting State’s primary duty was to adopt, and to apply in practice, regulations and measures capable of mitigating the existing and potentially irreversible, future effects of climate change. That obligation flowed from the causal relationship between climate change and the enjoyment of Convention rights, and the fact that the object and purpose of the Convention, as an instrument for the protection of human rights, required that its provisions must be interpreted and applied so as to guarantee rights that are practical and effective. The Court stressed that it was only competent to interpret the provisions of the Convention and its Protocols. However, it noted that in line with the international commitments undertaken by the member States, most notably under the UNFCCC the Paris climate agreement, and in the light of the compelling scientific advice provided, in particular, by the IPCC, States needed to put in place the necessary regulations and measures aimed at preventing an increase in GHG concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere and a rise in global average temperature beyond levels capable of producing serious and irreversible adverse effects on human rights under Article 8. Effective respect for those rights required States to undertake measures to reduce their GHG emission levels, with a view to reaching net neutrality within, in principle, the next three decades.
When assessing whether a State had remained within its margin of appreciation the Court had to examine whether the competent domestic authorities, be it at the legislative, executive or judicial level, had had due regard to the need to:
– adopt general measures specifying a target timeline for achieving carbon neutrality and the overall remaining carbon budget for the same time frame, or another equivalent method of quantification of future GHG emissions, in line with the overarching goal for national and/or global climate-change mitigation commitments;
– set out intermediate GHG emissions reduction targets and pathways (by sector or other relevant methodologies) that were deemed capable, in principle, of meeting the overall national GHG reduction goals within the relevant time frames undertaken in national policies;
– provide evidence showing whether they had duly complied, or are in the process of complying, with the relevant GHG reduction targets;
– keep the relevant GHG reduction targets updated with due diligence, and based on the best available evidence; and
– act in good time and in an appropriate and consistent manner when devising and implementing the relevant legislation and measures.
In that connection, the Court pointed out that a shortcoming in one particular respect alone would not necessarily mean that the State had overstepped its relevant margin of appreciation.
Furthermore, effective protection of the rights of individuals in this context required that mitigation measures be supplemented by adaptation measures aimed at alleviating the most severe or imminent consequences of climate change, taking into account any relevant particular needs for protection.
Moreover, the availability of procedural safeguards was especially material in determining whether the respondent State had remained within its margin of appreciation. Drawing on the approach taken in environmental cases and noting the specific features and complexities of the issues concerning climate change, the following types of procedural safeguards were to be taken into account as regards the State’s decision-making process in the context of climate change:
– the information held by public authorities of importance for setting out and implementing the relevant regulations and measures to tackle climate change must be made available to the public, and in particular to those persons who might be affected by the regulations and measures in question or the absence thereof. Procedural safeguards must be available to ensure that the public could have access to the conclusions of the relevant studies, allowing them to assess the risk to which they are exposed.
– procedures must be available through which the views of the public, and in particular the interests of those affected or at risk of being affected by the relevant regulations and measures or the absence thereof, could be taken into account in the decision-making process.
(ii) Application of the above principles to the present case – The Court found that there had been some critical lacunae in the Swiss authorities’ process of putting in place the relevant domestic regulatory framework, including a failure by them to quantify, through a carbon budget or otherwise, national GHG emissions limitations. Furthermore, as recognised by the relevant authorities, the State had previously failed to meet its past GHG emission reduction targets. The authorities had failed to act in good time and in an appropriate and consistent manner regarding the devising, development and implementation of the relevant legislative and administrative framework. Accordingly, the respondent State had exceeded its margin of appreciation and had failed to comply with its positive obligations under Article 8 in the present context/in the context of climate change.
Conclusion: violation (sixteen votes to one).
(3) Article 6 § 1 –
(a) Admissibility: applicability and victim status – The Court joined the issue of victim status/locus standi to its assessment of the applicability of Article 6 § 1. At the outset, it noted that while the general principles concerning the applicability of that provision prevailed in the present climate‑change context, their application might need to take into account the specificities of climate‑change litigation.
It found that Article 6 § 1 applied to the applicant association’s complaint concerning the effective implementation of the mitigation measures under existing law. In particular, there had been a genuine and serious dispute over a civil right (the right to life under Article 10 of the Constitution, from which also the right to physical integrity derived) and the outcome of the proceedings had been “directly decisive” for the applicant association. The Court, referring to its findings under Article 8, held that the applicant association also had victim status under Article 6 § 1. In that connection, it reiterated the important role of associations in defending specific causes in the sphere of environmental protection and the particular relevance of collective action in the context of climate change. However, for similar reasons to those in the assessment under Article 8, it found that the individual applicants did not have such status.
Conclusion: admissible (sixteen votes to one) in respect of the applicant association: preliminary objection dismissed (victim status) and Article 6 § 1 applicable; inadmissible (incompatible ratione materiae) (sixteen votes to one) with regard to the individual applicants.
(b) Merits – The rejection of the applicant association’s legal action without the merits of its complaints being assessed had amounted to a limitation of the right of access to a court. As regards the legitimate aim pursued by the limitation at issue, in so far as the decisions of the domestic courts sought to distinguish the issue of individual protection from the relevant democratic processes and general challenges to legislation, thereby preventing actio popularis complaints, the Court had previously accepted that maintaining the separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary was a legitimate aim as regards limitations on the right of access to a court. Moreover, Article 6 § 1 did not require the provision of access to a court as regards challenges to the state of domestic legislation, or for actio popularis complaints.
The Court held that the domestic courts had not engaged seriously or at all with the action. They had not provided convincing reasons as to why they had considered it unnecessary to examine the merits of the complaints. They had not carried out a sufficient examination of the compelling scientific evidence concerning climate change and the urgency as regards the existing and inevitable future impacts of that change on various aspects of human rights. Nor had they addressed the issue of address the issue of the standing of the applicant association, an issue which had warranted a separate assessment irrespective of the domestic courts’ position as regards the individual applicants’ complaints.
As there had been no further legal avenues or safeguards available to the applicant association, or individual applicants/members of the association, the Court found that the applicant association’s right to access to a court had been restricted in such a way and to such an extent that the very essence of the right had been impaired.
Lastly, the Court emphasised the key role which domestic courts played in climate-change litigation, a fact reflected in the case-law adopted to date in certain Council of Europe member States, highlighting the importance of access to justice in this field. Furthermore, given the principles of shared responsibility and subsidiarity, it fell primarily to national authorities, including the courts, to ensure that Convention obligations were observed.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Finally, the Court held, unanimously, that there was no need to examine separately the applicant’s association complaint under Article 13.
Article 41: no claim in respect of damage.
Article 46: Having regard to the complexity and the nature of the issues involved in the instant case, the Court found that it could not be detailed or prescriptive as regards any measures to be implemented in order to effectively comply with the present judgment. Given the differentiated margin of appreciation accorded to the State in this area, the Court considered that the respondent State, with the assistance of the Committee of Ministers, was better placed to assess the specific measures to be taken. It was thus for the Committee of Ministers to supervise, on the basis of the information provided by the respondent State, the adoption of measures aimed at ensuring that the national authorities comply with Convention requirements, as clarified in this judgment.
(See also Gorraiz Lizarraga and Others v. Spain, 62543/00, 27 April 2004, Legal Summary; Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and others [GC] (dec) 39371/20, 9 April 2024, Legal Summary; Carême v. France [GC] (dec) 7189/21, 9 April 2024, Legal Summary; Paris Agreement of 12 December 2015, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 3156; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, A/RES/48/189; Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters)
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