International court rules Switzerland violated human rights in landmark climate case brought by 2,000 women
(CNN) — An international court in France on Tuesday ruled Switzerland’s failure to adequately tackle the climate crisis was in violation of human rights, in a landmark climate judgment that experts say could have a ripple effect across the globe.
Posted — UpdatedThe European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France delivered its ruling on a case brought by more than 2,000 older Swiss women against Switzerland, who argued that climate change-fueled heatwaves undermined their health and quality of life and put them at risk of dying.
The court ruled that the Swiss government had violated some of the women’s human rights due to “critical gaps” in its national legislation to reduce planet-heating emissions, as well as a failure to meet past climate targets.
This amounted to a breach of the women’s rights to effective protection from the “the serious adverse effects of climate change on lives, health, well-being and quality of life,” the court said in a statement.
It marks the first time the court has ruled on climate litigation. There is no right of appeal and the judgment is legally binding.
Experts say the court’s ruling could bolster other human rights-based climate cases pending before international courts and could open the flood gates for numerous similar lawsuits to be launched in the future.
They also say that the ruling could force Switzerland to reduce its consumption of fossil fuels more rapidly. Fossil fuels are the main driver of human-caused climate change.
The court also heard two other claims, one brought by a municipal mayor against the French government and a third, the largest and highest-profile, by six young people in Portugal against 32 European countries. Those two claims were ruled “inadmissible.”
The court dismissed the Portuguese case on the basis that the claimants had not exhausted all legal avenues in their national court system first. It also ruled that there were no grounds to extend the claim to countries outside Portugal.
The French claim was ruled inadmissible because the claimant had since moved from the country and no longer had links with the region his claim focused on, and so did not qualify as a “victim” for the purposes of the lawsuit.
A judgment against any of the countries effectively operates “like a binding treaty imposed by the court,” said Gerry Liston, a lawyer at Global Legal Action Network, which supported the Portugal case.
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