The Advisory Council on Youth celebrates the European Court of Human Rights’ historic ruling in the Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and others v. Switzerland on 9 April 2024, the first ever by an international human rights court. This ruling, on the inadequacy of climate action by a nation state, highlights that the climate crisis is a human rights crisis.
The case was considered admissible in part and accepted only the admissibility of the case brought by the association and not that of the individual applicants. Under Article 34 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention), the Court used this ruling as an opportunity to create new standards on a victim status specific to climate-related cases and to avoid future actio popularis cases. This ruling demonstrates that climate inaction can and does violate the rights enshrined in the Convention, such as the right to private and family life (Article 8) and the right to access to court (Article 6§1)...
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