CASE OF VEREIN KLIMASENIORINNEN SCHWEIZ AND OTHERS v. SWITZERLAND
JUDGMENT
Art 34 • Victim • Locus standi • Separate key criteria set out for establishing victim status of individual applicants and locus standi (representation) of associations in climate-change context • Need for effective protection of Convention rights taking into account special features of this phenomenon without undermining the exclusion of actio popularis from the Convention system • In case-circumstances victim-status criteria not fulfilled by individual applicants • Especially high threshold for fulfilling criteria not met (incompatible ratione personae) • Applicant association fulfilled relevant criteria (locus standi) and thus had standing to act on behalf of its members • Importance of collective action and intergenerational burden-sharing in climate-change context
Art 8 • Positive obligations • Private and family life • Respondent State’s failure to comply with positive obligation to implement sufficient measures to combat climate change • Art 8 applicable • Art 8 encompassing a right for individuals to effective protection by the State authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health, well-being and quality of life • Need to develop a more appropriate and tailored approach as regards the various Convention issues arising in the climate-change context not addressed by Court’s existing environmental case-law • Importance of intergenerational burden‑sharing • Reduced margin of appreciation as regards State’s commitment combating climate change, its adverse effects and the setting of aims and objectives in this respect • Wide margin of appreciation as to the choice of means designed to achieve those objectives • Contracting State’s primary duty to adopt, and to effectively apply in practice, regulations and measures capable of mitigating the existing and potentially irreversible, future effects of climate change • Enumeration of requirements to which competent authorities need to have due regard • Need for domestic procedural safeguards • Mitigation measures to be supplemented by adaptation measures aimed at alleviating the most serious or imminent consequences of climate-change • Existence of critical lacunae in Swiss authorities’ process of putting in place the relevant domestic regulatory framework • Failure to quantify, through a carbon budget or otherwise, national GHG emission limitations • Failure 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 • Wide margin of appreciation exceeded
Art 6 § 1 (civil) • Access to court • Applicability of civil limb concerning the effective implementation of mitigation measures under domestic law • Domestic courts’ failure to engage seriously or at all with applicant association’s action • Lack of convincing reasons for non-examination of merits of complaints • Failure to consider compelling scientific evidence concerning climate change and to examine applicant association’s legal standing • Lack of further legal avenues or safeguards • Very essence of right of access to court impaired • Emphasis on domestic courts’ key role in climate-change litigation and of access to justice in this field
Art 46 • Execution of judgment • General measures • Respondent State to assess specific measures to be taken with the assistance of the Committee of Ministers
Prepared by the Registry. Does not bind the Court.
