EU Court: Rights of Elderly Swiss Violated by Government Inaction on Climate Goals

The ruling could set a precedent opening the door for other nations in Europe to file similar claims.

Whether this or similar lawsuits will make any difference in driving more nations to take the climate crisis more seriously as a result is unfortunately still in question. Governments, politicians and public employees are seldom held accountable for crimes of the state. 

While other cases about the climate crisis involving government and human rights violations often involve youth groups declaring their rights to a healthy life were stripped from them, often due to active decisions by those governments in support of fossil fuel use, this one originated from a very different source.

The plaintiffs in this action were the KlimaSeniorinnen, an association whose name translates as “Senior Women for Climate Protection”. Their case, which represented approximately 2,500 Swiss women citizens at least 64 years old, was filed in 2020 in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) located in Strasbourg, France. 

Prior to filing before the ECHR, the KlimaSeniorinnen filed in court in Switzerland declaring that because of their government’s poorly enforced policies curtailing fossil fuel use and related greenhouse gas emissions, as well as regarding shifting to zero emissions alternatives for energy generations and transportation, this group was threatened by the increasing temperatures and extended heat waves associated with the climate crisis in their country. The logic of the case was that older women are more likely to suffer from health problems as oppressive heat associated with solar energy trapped by greenhouse gases close to the Earth’s surface extends for longer periods of time.

Their cases filed within their country were turned down at multiple levels, ultimately resulting in a final rejection of their case by the Swiss Supreme Court four years ago.

Rather than giving up after the highest court in the country ruled against them, the KlimaSeniorinnen regrouped after the defeat and filed a new case on the same matter with the European Court on Human Rights. This time the nature of the case was more focused, leveraging the action this time under the European Convention of Human Rights.

The European Convention on Human Rights is an international treaty, formally known as the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which was based on ensuring for Europe the same freedoms as were defined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The European version of that was initially prepared in draft form in 1950 by the then newly structured Council of Europe, a precursor of sorts to what eventually became the European Union. The treaty covers a vast array of rights guarantees, including ensuring freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, right to liberty and security, and freedom of assembly and association, and the right to life itself, among others.

Each nation which is a signatory to that treaty is bound to ensure the compliance of their governments with its terms.

The treaty allows for individual citizens or people’s groups in signatory states to file legal actions against their governments for non-compliance with the rights as guaranteed in this treaty. Those lawsuits are handled by the European Court of Human Rights rather than within each nation, since they involve rights guaranteed effectively to all citizens of Europe.

In their complaint before the ECHR, the Senior Women for Climate Protection group filed for three grievances. They argued that:

Switzerland’s mostly non-existent and badly enforced climate regulations violated their members’ rights as defined by Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The articles cited are those protecting citizens’ “right to life” and “right to respect for private and family life”.

That the prior case they had filed within Switzerland had been rejected by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court for arbitrary reasons, thereby constituting a violation of the European Convention treaty under Article 6, the right to a fair trial.

That the Swiss Federal Supreme Court ruled against them without properly addressing the full content of the complaints they had filed, thereby violating the European Convention treaty’s Article 13, which covers the right to an effective remedy of actions.

The European Court of Human Rights accepted the case on March 25, 2021.

On September 21, 201, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and the Swiss branch of the ICJ submitted a special “third party invention” affidavit. That document went into detail on the effects of climate change on the right to life as defined in Article 2 of the European Convention, the right to respect for private and family life and for the home as defined under Article 8. It then detailed obligations states must positively respond to regarding those effects.

After multiple back and forth legal submittals and internal hearings, on April 9, 2024, the ECHR found for the KlimaSeniorinnen’s side of the matter. It declared the government of Switzerland had violated the terms of Article 8’s right to respect for private and family life and Article 6’s “right of access to court”.

An especially significant part of the ruling was that despite “that national authorities enjoy wide discretion concerning the implementation of legislation and measures, the Court held that the Swiss authorities had not acted in time and in an appropriate way to devise, develop, and implement relevant legislation and measures in this case.”

70-year-old Nicole Barbry, one of the members of the KlimaSeniorinnen who helped frame the case and followed with the team who fought to defend their position at the ECHR in Strasbourg, declared she was “very happy” with the result they achieved.

“It’s good that they’re finally listening to us,” she said.

Mandi Mudarikwa, Amnesty International’s Head of Strategic Litigation, a group which was involved behind the scenes in some of the filings associated with this case, pointed to the critical importance of the ruling yesterday both for the over 2,500 members of the KlimaSeniorinnen and the world at large.

“The ECHR has set a vital and historic precedent today with its ruling in the case involving the Swiss women by finding that the Swiss government had failed to comply with its duties under the European Convention concerning climate change, including failing to set clear limits on greenhouse gas emissions and not meeting its past greenhouse gas emission reduction targets,” she said in a statement after the ruling came down yesterday.

She also noted that the case represented a landmark in legal strategy for addressing government inaction on climate-related issues, by leveraging the human rights of those affected at large as something signatories to the European human rights declarations must abide by.

“The Swiss case ruling strengthens legal pathways to achieving climate justice through the ECtHR. It is hugely significant that the ECtHR recognized the harm caused to the applicants by climate change and that the Swiss government was doing too little to curb greenhouse gas emissions and adequately protect them,” Mudarikwa continued.

Joie Chowdhury, a senior lawyer with the Center for International Environmental Law which had strongly supported the case brought forth by the KlimaSeniorinnen, applauded the significance of the win as well as the legal basis under which the case had been fought.

“It is the first time that an international court has affirmed clearly that a climate crisis is a human rights crisis,” she said.

Because the laws and the court systems are different in Europe than they are in other areas such as the United States, for example, this precedent may not make its way across the Atlantic Ocean as the foundation for further climate crisis legal challenges in American courts. In Europe, however, Michael Gerrard, the director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University in New York, believes this litigation will pave the way to more effective challenging of governments within the EU in the future.

“I expect we’re going to see a rash of lawsuits in other European countries, because most of them have done the same thing,” he said after the court issued its decision yesterday. “They have failed to meet their climate goals, and failed to set climate targets that are adequate.”