{"id":21632,"date":"2024-04-18T10:17:22","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T15:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/?p=21632"},"modified":"2024-12-19T14:02:02","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T19:02:02","slug":"klimaseniorinnen-and-the-choice-between-imperfect-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2024\/04\/18\/klimaseniorinnen-and-the-choice-between-imperfect-options\/","title":{"rendered":"KlimaSeniorinnen and the Choice Between Imperfect Options"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\n

\"This<\/a><\/h1>\n

Incorporating International Climate Change Law to Maintain the ECHR\u2019s Relevance Amid the Climate Crisis<\/h1>\n

\u201cEverything could be different \u2013 and yet there is almost nothing I can change.\u201d This is, as Niklas Luhmann\u00a0<\/em>observed<\/a>, the paradoxical blend that modern democracies impose on citizens, inviting either utopianism or fatalism. Disillusionment with the transformative potential of democracy is indeed widespread in the face of the \u201crapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all<\/a>\u201d on the one hand (see also paras.\u00a0118 & 542), and the often\u00a0inadequate action<\/a>\u00a0taken to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions on the other.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Fatalism, however, was not something the more than 2,000 Swiss women with an average age of 73 joining together in the Association (German: \u2018Verein<\/em><\/a>\u2019) \u2018KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>\u00a0Schweiz<\/em><\/a>\u2019<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0succumbed to. Rather, as part of a\u00a0strategic litigation effort<\/a>\u00a0initiated by \u2018Greenpeace Switzerland\u2019, an NGO,\u00a0\u2018KlimaSeniorinnen\u2019<\/em>\u00a0made the case that the Swiss federal executive branch of government\u2019s failure to initiate a revision of the existing\u00a0climate legislation<\/a>\u00a0amounted to a violation of the country\u2019s positive obligations stemming from the\u00a0right to life<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0right to respect for private and family life<\/a>\u00a0enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Senior female citizens, they maintained, would be\u00a0adversely affected by heat weaves<\/a>\u00a0occurring both\u00a0more frequently and severely<\/a>\u00a0on account of omissions by federal authorities to reduce Switzerland\u2019s GHG emissions (see para.\u00a022).<\/p>\n

Neither the\u00a0Swiss Federal Administration<\/a>\u00a0(paras.\u00a022\u201331) nor the\u00a0Federal Administrative Court<\/a>\u00a0(paras.\u00a032\u201342) nor, as\u00a0critically appraised<\/a>, the\u00a0Federal Supreme Court<\/a>\u00a0(paras.\u00a043\u201363)\u00a0considered<\/a>\u00a0the motion of \u2018KlimaSeniorinnen\u2019<\/em>\u00a0and four of their members on its merits.<\/p>\n

C<\/strong>ategorical differences between\u00a0<\/strong>KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and Court\u2019s\u00a0<\/strong>existing environmental case law<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2018KlimaSeniorinnen\u2019<\/em>\u00a0had thus\u00a0exhausted all domestic remedies<\/a>. This indicates that not only democracy but also litigation to compel governments to reduce GHG emissions is fraught with obstacles. This is mainly due to the interplay of climate physics underpinning climate change and the rationale of the judicial process. Carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>) accounts for\u00a0two-thirds<\/a>\u00a0of all GHGs emitted. Multiple lines of evidence indicate a causal and \u201calmost linear relationship between cumulative CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions and projected global temperature change<\/a>\u201d. Each tonne of CO2\u00a0<\/sub>emitted into the atmosphere anywhere on Earth at any given time thus had, has and will have an almost identical effect on the average global temperature. Due to the high heat capacity of the Earth system, an average of\u00a010.2 years<\/a>\u00a0elapses between emission of CO2\u00a0<\/sub>and its maximum effect in terms of the resulting global warming. Climate change induced by increased atmospheric CO2\u00a0<\/sub>concentration \u201cremains largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop<\/a>.\u201d The rise in the global average temperature is therefore, as the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) acknowledged in the\u00a0KlimaSeniorinnen\u00a0<\/em>decision (paras.\u00a0416\u20137, 425, 439), essentially determined by the\u00a0cumulative<\/em>\u00a0level of all GHG emissions accrued over centuries, to the effect that \u201c[m]ost aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2<\/sub>\u00a0are stopped<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

By contrast, the ECtHR\u2019s existing environmental case law refers to situations in which harm (toxic waste, pollution, etc.) inflicted on applicants can be traced directly to a\u00a0specific source<\/em>\u00a0(e.g. industrial steelworks complex or landfill) located within the jurisdiction of the respondent State. Given this state authorities can take effective action to reduce the infringement (rf., e.g.,\u00a0Cordella and Others v. Italy<\/em><\/a>). In this previous environmental case law, there was, in other words, a direct link \u201cbetween a source of harm and those affected by the harm\u201d, and the measures necessary to alleviate the harm were \u201cidentifiable and available to be applied at the source of the harm\u201d (para. 415). Therefore, recourse to \u2018positive obligations<\/a>\u2019 derived from the Convention, especially its Articles\u00a02<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a08<\/a>\u00a0(see paras.\u00a0538\u2013540), is essential for the Court to ensure that, in environmental cases as well, the judicial process may serve its main purpose: to provide relief to individuals who have suffered specific, measurable, and unlawful harm at the hands of the party bearing legal responsibility for the infringement.<\/p>\n

An institutional dilemma: choosing the best imperfect option<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Owing to the interaction between the physics underpinning climate change and the rationale of the judicial process, the \u201cfundamental differences\u201d (para.\u00a0422) between\u00a0KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>\u00a0and the existing environmental case law presented the Court with a serious dilemma: the remedy sought by the applicants (i.e. a drastic reduction of GHG emissions; see paras.\u00a022, 319\u2013336) would not have alleviated their harm, despite the \u201ccausal relationship between climate change and the enjoyment of Convention rights\u201d (para.\u00a0545; see also paras.\u00a0431\u2013436). This left the Court with few options \u2013 all of them imperfect.<\/p>\n

To find the alleged omissions outside the scope of the guarantees of the Convention would not only have risked neglecting the link between climate change and the severe consequences for\u00a0many aspects of human life<\/a>, which are closely intertwined with some guarantees of the Convention, but would also have rendered both the Convention and the Court \u2013 the \u2018Conscience of Europe<\/a>\u2019 \u2013 largely irrelevant with regard to \u201cone of the most pressing issues of our times\u201d (para.\u00a0410). However, maintaining the relevance of both the Convention and the Court is fraught with considerable peril for the institution, especially at a time when human rights law in general and the ECHR in particular have come under\u00a0mounting scrutiny<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What the ECtHR thus refers to as a \u201ctailored approach\u201d (paras.\u00a0422, 434 & 436) amounts, at least partly, to the Court\u2019s attempt to maintain both the Convention\u2019s and its own relevance in the midst of one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity, while at the same time carefully seeking to respect the realm of politics with regard to concrete \u201cmeasures to be implemented\u201d (para.\u00a0657).<\/p>\n

A \u201ctailored approach\u201d: incorporating international climate change law<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This \u201ctailored approach\u201d (para.\u00a0422) essentially consists of incorporating objectives, obligations, and aspirations of international climate change law under the\u00a0UNFCCC<\/a>, including the\u00a0Paris Agreement<\/a>, to define the scope of the positive obligations deriving from\u00a0Article 8<\/a>\u00a0of the Convention (see paras. 541\u2013549). The Court also prescribed a comprehensive set of criteria for States to fulfil in order to comply with the Convention (see paras.\u00a0550\u2013554).<\/p>\n

The Court derives its approach from the positive obligation of States to protect individuals from \u201cadverse effects on human health, well-being and quality of life arising from various sources of environmental harm and risk of harm\u201d (para.\u00a0544; see also para.\u00a0435) and from a \u201charmonious and evolutive interpretation of the Convention in the light of the developing rules and principles of international environmental law\u201d (para.\u00a0453). This doctrine has been established in\u00a0previous case law<\/a>\u00a0on the basis of\u00a0Article 31 \u00a7 3 (c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With respect to Articles\u00a06<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a08<\/a>\u00a0ECHR, the Court granted the applicant association\u00a0(\u2018KlimaSeniorinnen\u2019)<\/em>\u00a0locus standi (paras.\u00a0526, 623, 625), while holding that the four individual applicants failed to satisfy the criteria for victim status (paras.\u00a0535, 624, 625). This is consistent with the fact that, for the reasons rooted in climate physics noted above, it is\u00a0local adaptation measures<\/a>, such as\u00a0free home visits by medical professionals during heatwaves<\/a>, or \u201creasonable measures of personal adaptation\u201d (para.\u00a0533), rather than the GHG emission reductions requested by the applicants (see paras.\u00a022, 319\u2013336), that can mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change for individual applicants.<\/p>\n

The Court, while finding Switzerland in violation of both Articles\u00a06<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a08<\/a>\u00a0of the Convention (paras.\u00a0574 & 640), shied away from prescribing any concrete \u201cmeasures to be implemented in order to effectively comply\u201d with its judgment. The Court deemed \u201cthe respondent State, with the assistance of the Committee of Ministers\u201d to be \u201cbetter placed than the Court to assess the specific measures to be taken\u201d instead (para.\u00a0657).<\/p>\n

Emphasizing the collective dimension<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 an administrative turn<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Court\u2019s approach highlights the\u00a0collective<\/a>\u00a0dimensions<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0climate change<\/a>, while seeking to account for the threats posed by the effects of anthropogenic GHG emissions to the values protected by the Convention\u2019s rights. The stringent criteria for associations to have standing (see paras. 502\u20133) are likely to ensure that only well-founded applications reach the Court. Given the Court\u2019s reluctance to prescribe specific measures to be implemented by the respondent state (para.\u00a0657), the \u201ctailored approach\u201d (para.\u00a0422) risks transforming applications to the ECtHR to compel states to reduce their GHG emissions into a hybrid form of weak public interest litigation, akin to supervisory complaints in administrative law.<\/p>\n

Excessively \u2018harmonious\u2019: turning \u2018Paris\u2019 upside down<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The\u00a0Paris Agreement<\/a>, which the Court in part incorporates to define the scope of the positive obligations deriving from ECHR\u2019s\u00a0Article 8<\/a>, \u201ccontains provisions spread across the spectrum of legal character<\/a>\u201d. The Treaty\u2019s provisions on \u2018loss and damage<\/a>\u2019 are mere \u201csoft obligations<\/a>\u201d that \u201crecommend<\/a>\u201d but (do not require) certain actions, not least due to the United States\u2019 stance at\u00a0COP 21<\/a>\u00a0that any stricter provision would \u201ckill the deal<\/a>\u201d. The\u00a0Paris Agreement\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0core provision,\u00a0Article 4(2)<\/a>\u00a0on \u2018Nationally Determined Contributions\u2019 (para.\u00a0136), states an obligation (\u2018shall\u2019) of\u00a0conduct<\/a>\u00a0(\u2018intends to achieve\u2019) rather than one of result. This deliberate shift away from the\u00a0Kyoto Protocol\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0binding reduction commitments<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0often<\/a>\u00a0referred to as a transition from a \u2018top-down\u2019 to a\u00a0\u2018bottom-up\u2019 approach<\/a>\u2018.<\/p>\n

Despite these crucial nuances in the \u201cterms of the treaty<\/a>\u201d, the Court refers to the\u00a0UNFCCC<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Paris Agreement<\/a>\u00a0as \u201cinternational commitments undertaken by the member States\u201d (para.\u00a0546) when determining the scope of States\u2019 positive obligations. There are, to be sure, legitimate policy considerations to call for a much more robust and effective mechanism for states to effectively reduce their GHG emissions. However, deriving not only such obligations of result but a judicial supervisory mechanism (paras.\u00a0550\u2013554) from the meticulously negotiated and crafted \u201cterms<\/a>\u201d of the\u00a0Paris Agreement<\/a>\u00a0tends to turn its \u201c\u2018bottom-up\u2019 approach<\/a>\u201d on its head and is likely to go well beyond what a \u201charmonious (\u2026)\u00a0interpretation<\/a>\u201d (para.\u00a0453) allows for.<\/p>\n

Conclusion: reiterating the prerogative of politics<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In a seemingly paradoxical way, KlimaSeniorinnen\u00a0<\/em>reaffirms the prerogative of politics: while member States\u2019 of the Council of Europe climate policies must, according to the ECtHR, comply with a detailed set of criteria in order to be in accordance with the Convention (see paras.\u00a0550\u2013554) the Court still refrained from prescribing concrete \u201cmeasures to be implemented\u201d (para.\u00a0657). Hence, only in hindsight will we be able to tell whether\u00a0KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>, on which the Court has expended considerable political capital, turned out to be as \u201ctransformative<\/a>\u201d as one hopes for. The \u201cowl of Minerva<\/a>\u201d, after all, \u201cbegins its flight only with the falling of dusk<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Incorporating International Climate Change Law to Maintain the ECHR\u2019s Relevance Amid the Climate Crisis \u201cEverything could be different \u2013 and yet there is almost nothing I can change.\u201d This is, as Niklas Luhmann\u00a0observed, the paradoxical blend that modern democracies impose on citizens, inviting either utopianism or fatalism. Disillusionment with the transformative potential of democracy is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2314,"featured_media":21635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69613,5673,69207,5671],"tags":[65748,69264,69702],"class_list":{"0":"post-21632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog-series","8":"category-litigation","9":"category-cross-cutting-issues","10":"category-international","11":"tag-climate-cases","12":"tag-european-court-of-human-rights","13":"tag-verfassungsblog","14":"czr-hentry"},"yoast_head":"\nKlimaSeniorinnen and the Choice Between Imperfect Options - Climate Law Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2024\/04\/18\/klimaseniorinnen-and-the-choice-between-imperfect-options\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"KlimaSeniorinnen and the Choice Between Imperfect Options - Climate Law Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Incorporating International Climate Change Law to Maintain the ECHR\u2019s Relevance Amid the Climate Crisis \u201cEverything could be different \u2013 and yet there is almost nothing I can change.\u201d This is, as Niklas Luhmann\u00a0observed, the paradoxical blend that modern democracies impose on citizens, inviting either utopianism or fatalism. 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