By Rosemary Kurian

Switzerland: Climate inaction is violation of human rights rules ECHR
What is the case? 
On 09 April, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled against Switzerland for violating the human rights of its citizens by failing to sufficiently combat climate change. In a case filed by a group of thousands of elderly women claiming that their government’s inaction was putting their lives at risk, the court ruled that Switzerland failed to comply with its own targets for cutting greenhouse emissions. Siofra O’Leary, the Court President, said that “The future generations are likely to bear an increasingly severe burden of the consequences of present failures to combat climate change.”
 
The court ruled that Switzerland was in violation of Article 8 of the European Covenant of Human Rights of the “right to respect for private and family life”, adding that climate protection is a human right. By extension, it concluded that states are obliged to protect their citizens from the harms of climate change, as signatories of the Human Rights Covenant.
 
Who are the Swiss women and what are their demands? 
More than 2000 women over the age of 64 part of the KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz (Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland) filed a case against the government of Switzerland on 29 March 2023. The group was formed in 2016 with just 40 women aged 64 and over, to whom the Grand Chamber of the ECHR granted victim status after their case was won. Before approaching the ECHR, they approached Switzerland’s Federal Court in 2016, which dismissed their case in 2020. They receive support from Greenpeace Switzerland, who have taken the responsibility of the costs of the legal initiative.
 
The KlimaSeniorinnen claimed that their state’s inaction on increasing climate change was violating their human right to life. At the ECHR, they argued that their age and gender made them especially vulnerable and more likely to die during the extreme heatwaves, citing a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Therefore, they demanded that Switzerland design climate policies to limit global warming to 1.5℃, as promised under the Paris Agreement.
 
What is the state of Switzerland's climate policies?
According to Reuters, the temperatures in Switzerland are increasing at twice the rate of the global average, with rapidly melting glaciers. Switzerland is signatory to the Paris Agreement, and has committed itself to cutting down greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2030. It later proposed stronger measures to achieve this goal, which got rejected in 2021 by voters in a referendum, claiming it to be too burdensome. According to Andreas Zünd, the Swiss ECHR judge, the Paris Climate Agreement was decisive in the ruling, especially since Switzerland had ratified it.
 
The court instructed the state to find its own means “subject to democratic debate” to fulfil its commitments. Based on existing policies, it is predicted that Switzerland might fail to achieve its GHG targets by 2030, in addition its aim of achieving net zero by 2050 based on its nationally determined contribution as required under Article 4 of the Paris Agreement. It might have to reconsider the excise duty on liquid motor fuels, raising the levy on CO2 emissions from 2030, legislate post 2030 sector-specific climate policies, and implement restrictions on carbon emissions embedded in Swiss imports twice as high as domestic emissions. The verdict cannot be appealed and indicates the legal duty that Switzerland has towards its citizens by protecting them from climate change. Therefore, if the state fails to update its climate policies and bring down the emission rates and warming limit, it could provoke further litigation at a national level with potential financial penalties levied.
 
What does the ruling imply?
The ruling sets one of the first ever legal precedents on climate action, by establishing binding rules for all 46 countries signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights. Ruth Delbaere, legal campaigns director at global civic movement Avaaz, noted that the verdict set a “blueprint for how to successfully sue your own government over climate failures”. Several other national courts are considering human rights-based cases under climate action, especially in Australia, Brazil, Peru and South Korea, with the Supreme Court of India recently ruling that citizens have the right to be protected from adverse effects of climate change.
 
The verdict can also be used to govern future cases at the ECHR, since six other cases on climate inaction have been kept on hold. A lawsuit has been filed against the Norwegian government for issuing new licences to explore oil and gas in the Barents Sea post 2035. A group of six Portuguese youngsters brought a case against 32 countries, thrown out as the ECHR stated that remedies at the national level need to be first exhausted. It also rejected a case brought by a former French mayor accusing that state inaction would cause his town to be submerged under the North Sea. The court stated that he failed to be a direct victim since he moved to Brussels. The argument for the above cases is similar to the case filed by the KlimaSeniorinnen, claiming that the civil and political rights guaranteed by the human rights convention was meaningless if the planet is uninhabitable.
 
References
Alexandra Sharp, “Swiss Women Win Landmark Climate Victory,” Foreign Policy, 09 April 2024
Gloria Dickie, Kate Abnett and Christian Levaux, “Swiss women win landmark climate case at Europe top human rights court,” Reuters, 10 April 2024
“Top European court hands Swiss women victory in landmark climate ruling,” Al Jazeera, 09 April 2024
“Who are the elderly Swiss women behind the climate court case win?,” First post, 10 April 2024
“KlimaSeniorinnen: Meet the older women suing Switzerland to demand climate action,” Reuters, 09 April 2024
“Switzerland not complying with Paris Climate Agreement, says Swiss ECHR judge”, Swissinfo, 12 April 2024
Cecile Mantovani and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, “Switzerland underestimated elderly women in climate case, plaintiff says,” Reuters, 12 April 2024
“Switzerland: Climate Change Mitigation in Switzerland,” International Monetary Fund, 07 June 2023