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Europe Rules That Insufficient Climate Change Action Is a Human Rights Violation

In a landmark ruling, the European Court of Human Rights found that Switzerland had not done enough to protect its citizens from climate change—blowing open the door for further cases against governments.

A group of older women from Switzerland, young people from Portugal, and a former French mayor —they had all brought cases to the court alleging that their governments were not doing enough to battle the climate crisis now regularly ravaging Europe with heat waves, droughts, and other extreme weather. While the ECHR, based in Strasbourg, France, chose not to admit two of the cases in question, it ruled that the Swiss women were right—their government had failed to do enough to meet the country’s responsibilities over climate change. Higham says the ECHR’s ruling is “likely to have ramifications around the world.” She notes that, globally, there are around 100 similar cases in progress at various courts, also challenging governments over their climate change mitigation efforts.

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