European Court of Human Rights
Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz, Ruth Schaub, Marie-Eve Volkoff Peschon, Bruna Giovanna Olimpia Molinari and Marie Gabrielle Thérèse Budry (four elderly Swiss women)
Switzerland
In the framework of anthropocentric climate-change the Petitioners (a non-profit Swiss association, “established to promote and implement effective climate protection on behalf of its members” and four of its members) petitioned to the European Court of Human Rights, after having exhausted legal remedies before domestic Swiss courts.
They argued that various omissions of the Swiss State to mitigate climate change amounted to a violation of articles 2 (concerning the right to life), 6 (concerning the right to a fair trial), 8 (concerning the right to family life and privacy) and 13 (concerning the right to an effective remedy) the European Convention on Human Rights. Hereto, they relied on the impact of global warming on elderly people —furthered by humanly-exacerbated greenhouse gas emissions.
In this landmark decision, the European Court of Human Rights agreed with the Petitioners and thereby became the first international Court to recognize that governments have a human rights obligation to take action on climate change. This obligation — rooted in the right to family life and privacy (article 8 of the European Convention on human rights) — includes the obligation to take immediate action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as an obligation to help vulnerable groups adapt to climate change.