This is legitimately insane. You have a court, which was created in an attempt to give legal options to victims of crimes committed by nation states and which could not be heard elsewhere. And people are suing over whatever a tiny European state doesn't do to stop environmental harm, which may or may not even effect the people who are suing at all.
And these people are from the country on earth where the population has the greatest control over their government. Switzerland isn't some rogue state, the population has legal means to force the government to do essentially whatever they want. So the human rights violation is being committed by the population themselves.
If Switzerland is commiting a human rights violation by doing this, what monumental human rights violation is committed by India. A country which uses the oceans to distribute it's waste globally? How about China, burning endless coal?
It really must be dismaying to see how little anyone actually cares about the environment on a global scale, for someone who actually cares about the environment. Instead we have people arguing literal nonsense in a court.
Wether the actions have been approved by a democratic majority seems orthogonal to whether human rights have been violated (if a government performs torture on some humans it would still be a human rights issue even if there's democratic support for it).
The fact that this would imply that other countries, such as India and China, also would have similar human rights issues doesn't seem very strange either - several countries often violate human rights in the same way.
Not saying I agree with the legal case, but your explanations of why it's "insane" doesn't really hold water to me.
Maybe it is insane but the prisoners dilemma we face regarding climate inaction is also insane. I don't have a solution to propose but can appreciate the kafkaesque nightmare we've barrelled in to.
I have not formed any opinion whatsoever about the decision itself, but regarding the court itself:
> This is legitimately insane. You have a court, which was created in an attempt to give legal options to victims of crimes committed by nation state and which could not be heard elsewhere. And people are suing over whatever a tiny European state doesn't do to stop environmental harm. Which may or may not even effect the people who are suing at all.
The court was created to evaluate any situation that violates the general principles of the European Convention of Human Rights. There is no rule that only those suffering an injustice is allowed to complain about it.
> And these people are from the country on earth where the population has the greatest control over their government. Switzerland isn't some rogue state, the population has legal means to force the government to do essentially whatever they want. So the human rights violation is essentially being committed by the population themselves.
The government is still the final party responsible for having policies and nation-level actions adhere to laws and conventions.
It would not be fair to sue John and Jane Doe for having voted for a possibly non-compliant government action, or for failing to push policy suggestions sufficiently for them to be voted into action. The regular population only has limited knowledge about statecraft.
> If Switzerland is commiting a human rights violation by doing this, what monumental human rights violation is committed by India. A country which uses the oceans to distribute it's waste globally? How about China, burning endless coal?
India and China are not parties to the European Convention on Human Rights. Switzerland is. Whataboutism also has no relevance to the court ruling.
It's not really "whataboutism" in the context of the problem when you realize that we're locked in the same closed system as them. It's just absurd to think that the younger generations are being told that if they want to enjoy a similar quality of life as their parents did, they are directly causing the destruction of the world, when in reality the sacrifices they are being asked to make are going to have the net effect of at best kicking the can down the road a few more years.
It’s a multi generational issue. It’s not a question of fair when the repercussions for not addressing it are massive. Younger generations know this. It’s too bad older generations did nothing to address the issues they saw in front of them. They were too selfish
I also think it’s preposterous to put climate change at their feet
It is whataboutism to complain about court action against a bad thing the basis that others, outside the court jurisdiction, will still do the bad thing.
> are going to have the net effect of at best kicking the can down the road a few more years.
All individual climate initiatives "kick the can down the road N more years" when viewed in isolation. What you need to look at is where the can started, and how to get people to keep kicking until it makes it all the way off the map.
Phasing out CFCs kicked the can N years, phasing out HCFCs and HFCs kick it N more, tightening up emission regulations and not having individuals commute in 12 liter hemis with cat delete and coal rolling mods kick it N more, tightening up international shipping emissions another N years, etc.
I think most people would agree that rationally no amount of action by the Swiss Government is going to change the climate change experienced by the claimants. But I also concede that line of thinking ends in never doing anything. It's a fair position to say not doing your share is meaningful.
Personally I don't agree with the ECHR's definitions/breadth of remit, and I suspect that I am not alone. I believe it's the sort of ruling that devalues what should be an important control mechanism on protecting people from serious abuse. But, just my pov and others are free to vote in line with theirs!
The Swiss Federal Constitution says that federal courts have to enforce national laws, but also international agreements. That's all. Swiss courts have just failed their own constitutional duties according to this supranational instance.
Also China is fabricating basically all your products, so of course it's only natural they also produce more pollution.
>So the human rights violation is essentially being committed by the population themselves.
While I too find it somewhat weird that the ECHR is involved in climate regulation, I find the appeal to majority/democracy to be missing the point of constitutional legal systems, and European Convention on Human Rights is a sort of a constitution. Without independent judiciary that is not subject to the pressures by the majority (ideally), even democracy itself wouldn't survive, not to mention the rights of the minority, say people who will be displaced or will lose their livelihood due to the climate change (albeit Switzerland should be one of the countries least negative affected by the climate change).
The court might also accept projects to adapt to climate change as „climate action“, but to my knowledge such projects are pursued even less than reducing emissions (for good reason).
Hunger causes loss of life, and in order to eradicate hunger people need a lot of stuff (like natural gas for fertilizer) that is environmentally damaging
I appreciate the judge here making a stand for something they believe in, but it's not easily defensible
Also in my mind when talking about developing and middle-income nations what level of prosperity is human right? And what level of emissions resulting in climate change is acceptable? As surely denying prosperity is more against human rights than delaying climate change...
If economic prosperity requires humanity to trade it's future away then the economics simply don't work. The economy should serve us, and the direction we choose to go, not the other way around.
Yes, I realize I'm arguing against capitalism in some sense and no, that does not imply I'm a communist. I'm just pointing out a fundamental flaw, but I don't have an alternative.
>b) Last time I looked on the map, India was not in Europe.
There is an international court of human rights. How often was India found guilty there?
>Either you're arguing in bad faith, or you don't understand that this might help pushing governments to take stricter measures.
I am 100% convinced that there is nothing which makes you object more to climate protection than a foreign entity trying to compel the government you control to "do more".
And even if. When will India/China act? How many International court of human rights ruling will that take?
> There is an international court of human rights. How often was India found guilty there?
The International Criminal Court is not the European Court of Human Rights.
The ICC appears to be focused on crimes against humanity, and I'm not a lawyer so I'd be even worse than ChatGPT at figuring out if climate change would be under that banner.
India is neither a state party, nor a signatory, to the ICC, so (again, IANAL) I assume that means they can't be taken before it.
> When will India/China act?
They already are, because despite the memes the problem itself is directly relevant to both, and the solution happens to be a cheap export opportunity and soft power projection opportunity for one, and a subsidised cheap economy growth opportunity for the other.
It's not a "foreign entity." Switzerland has signed a treaty in which they recognize that court. The trial was brought by Swiss people.
> When will India/China act?
First, China has made promises, and have acted a bit. But we, the people, don't hold leverage over China nor India, so it will be on their citizens to achieve any progress, or on international powers to apply sanctions. But international politics is extremely slow and change averse, so probably the 2C limit will have become unavoidable by the time that happens.
But above all: this decision does not depend on China nor India. It's totally irrelevant to object to it by appealing to those countries.
> There is an international court of human rights.
There isn't. There is the ICJ, which handles disputes between states, and the ICC, which handles war crimes etc. and definitely isn't going to judge climate legislation.
If democracy isn’t working and you’re looking for an outside authority to start forcing your agenda on people, then what you’re looking for is tyranny.
The ECHR is very obviously writing brand new legislation here, completely outside of the democratic process. The argument of “well that’s good because I think the democratic process should have already created this legislation” is simply anti-democratic.
The ECHR rules that Switzerland has failed to meet its treaty obligations WRT climate action. IE, there's been an internal failure by Switzerland's government and courts to enforce its own legislation and treaty obligations. So, these women took the next step - an international court (to which Switzerland is a party - if the Swiss don't like it, they should vote to abandon their obligation to the ECHR).
I agree that the ruling is troubling - if we take the article on face
value.
It bothers me for the same reason that some people are dismayed by
attempts at compelled speech. Because it gets a problem ass backwards.
One cannot claim that inaction is a violation of human rights.
All of us have the right to just look at the world and throw our hands
up in the air, and cry, and say "I just don't know what to
do!". Climate change is a tragedy that makes the greatest people, the
most compassionate, motivated experts freeze in fear an inaction.
What is wrong and is a blatant violation of human rights in the face
of looming catastrophe is inhibiting or sabotaging action. For
example, the UK government has gone out of its way to spitefully
outlaw legitimate peaceful protest by environmentalists.
Complaining about inaction while failing to step up and defend rights
to action is hypocritical and a passive.
Switzerland is party to treaties that concern climate change and action. Switzerland is failing to meet these obligations. So, some women sued in international court. That's what the court ruled - that Switzerland is failing to meet its obligations under the law.
The Swiss promised to do their part to mitigate climate change. They failed to do so. So, a group of Swiss citizens took the government to court to compel action. Nothing that seems particularly unreasonable to me.
I guess I find it troubling because my own government are working so
hard in the opposite direction. Maybe a bit of jealousy that the Swiss
get to call their government to account.
Now, whether this ruling can actually move anything... who knows. How
can you make governments do something? Meaningless fines, strong
words and other toothless gestures?
I am not optimistic. For 40 years I'm used to being actively lied to
by a corrupt and inept government. They will burn the planet rather
than concede a single penny of profit for their cronies.
That's why I say, the ECHR would be much better off defending the
rights to action. That would give encouragement to people. It should
be illegal for the UK or any government to inhibit lawful protest
(including making laws to do that).
> Decision of the Court
> The Court began by noting that it could deal with the issues arising from climate change only within
> the limits of the exercise of its competence under Article 19 (Establishment of the Court) of the
> Convention, which is to ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken by the High
> Contracting Parties to the Convention and its Protocol
To play devil's advocate, it seems fair that a human has the right to not have their air poisoned, or to have a future on the planet for their kids. No idea if that matches any of its articles though.
However, the European Convention of Human Rights was a decision we as a larger society made, as a deliberate safe-guard against having other decisions (or lack thereof) conflict with what we considered the basic requirements for a decent human life. Unless the convention is abandoned, no society that agreed to it can decide (including inaction through indecision!) on something that conflicts with it.
CO2 isn't poison unless it doubles. The other air pollutants are though, although I'm also sure that certain kingdom of life wouldn't appreciate the collapse of biological ecosystems as CO2 further insulates the planet.
You'll have to consult that kingdom's appropriate court of rights though. The European Convention for Human Rights had a quite narrow scope in that regard.
The majority of people are short-sighted and/or greedy. The only way to make change is through action such as this. Or violence. But let’s try this first.
But why Switzerland? They have taken some climate actions, although they of course could have done more. Why not sue major offenders like India or Russia, just to name a few, who could actually make a difference to world climate? Or if you want to stay closer to Europe, sue some country that still uses coal plants, like Poland, Germany or Slovakia. It all feels quite hypocrite to me.
> Why not sue major offenders like India or Russia, just to name a few, who could actually make a difference to world climate?
India is not by any sensible measure a "major offender". They do have the third highest total emissions but that is because they have the largest or second largest population. Their per capita emissions are half of Switzerland's.
And yes, per capita is a far better measure than per country unless you can make a case that the people of some countries have some sort of natural or divine right to live a higher CO2 lifestyle.
I'm all for suing other nations as well, but we (wealthy western nations) need to get our ducks in a row first. No point suing Poland about coal use while we (USA) also burn coal.
Because the plaintiffs are Swiss. Who else should they sue? Similar cases have happened elsewhere, e.g. the Urgenda case in the Netherlands.
Pointing to the inaction of other countries as an excuse for one's own inaction is a weak argument. Good luck suing Russia. (They were actually a member of the Council of Europe until 2022, so this decision would have applied to them...)
But then this feels like suing somebody for emptying his ashtray in a canal where 100 meter further a factory is discharging chemical waste. Good luck suing the factory.
OTOH — and for unrelated reasons — the factory (Russia) just had half its customers (Europe) not only boycott the factory itself, but also arrange a global price ceiling for all the other customers who weren't ready to transition away just yet.
Switzerland is the most democratic country you can find on earth. The population has an enormous power to compell the government.
If Switzerland does too little for the environment it can not happen against the will of the population. Surely having some foreign court compell them makes them overthink their wrong choices.
Well, actually it can. For example, there was 'Popular initiative “For responsible companies – to protect people and the environment”' [0] which got voted NO because of electoral votes, even though it received the popular vote at 50.7%. Same reason as in the US: electoral votes overrepresent low density, conservative areas.
You seem very confused by this in your comments. Did you read the article? The Swiss government was found to be out of line with its own policies and laws.
It should be a human right for people living near the equator. Wet bulb temperatures there are hot, and increases of 2+ degrees C is genuinely very dire for them.
It's easy for this to be out of sight out of mind for anyone living in a colder climate or with enough income to ensure indoors air conditioning.
This is a European re-run of the 2019 Dutch Urgenda trial on the same subject [1] and it is definitely not a good thing no matter whether you believe in a "climate catastrophe" or not. These types of trials are used as a run-around for the - dare I use the term 'democratic' - political process to get policies enacted which are only supported by a fraction of the electorate.
Thus far this tactic has been used by "progressives" for "progressive" causes so critics of the process tends to be labelled "right-wing" or some form of *-ist or *-denier so as to make them untouchable. Those who support this type of legal strong-arming of the political process would do well to contemplate how this same tactic can be used by their political opponents to force their governments to enact policies they oppose.
The democratic process is what has established the human rights conventions. These people are just using what we've established in attempt to protect their rights.
The fact that statutes and courts are used for other purposes than originally envisioned does not justify those purposes or actions. It is quite likely that this tactic will eventually be used to push through policies which go against "progressive" doctrine, some of the more likely areas for this to happen are migration and criminal justice.
Given your nick I assume you're from the USA (and/or work for Intel...) so there are already some examples of this happening in both directions, e.g. first the establishment of a federal 'right to abortion' in Roe vs. Wade which was then withdrawn when the supreme court decision on Roe vs Wade pushed abortion legislation back to the state level. The laws are in place - both on state as well as federate level - for forcing your state and federal government to restrict migration and clamp down on district attorneys who are unwilling to prosecute criminals, all it takes is for some entity to manage to get a case in a 'friendly' court. Will you see such decisions in the same light as you're portraying this decision?
I'm Western European so this kind of thing does not have the partisan colouring you seem to read into this, at least to me. I chose this nick because I've always liked the Intel codenames. :-)
What I'm arguing here is that we've democratically elected leaders that have put the system in place that allows citizens to bring grievances when they have no other recourse to protect their rights. You can't then turn around and say that's an abuse of democracy, I feel it's the result.
What I think you're really arguing against is the existence of 'friendly' courts. Lady Justice should be blind and so whether progressive or conservative, if a court does its job and applies the law as our democratically elected leaders have written them I honestly don't care. Even if that means it will sometimes rule in a way I disagree with.
The problem here does not lie in the establishment or ratification of a court to handle human rights affairs but in the equation of 'climate policy' with ´human rights'. Seen in this light many other issues can be portrayed as 'human rights', some of them far more directly than 'climate policy'. The right to self-defence is one such issue which could be taken up by an activist group to allow people to keep and bear arms for that purpose, something which is alien to most European countries but could be argued to become a necessity due to the inability of the justice system to provide an adequate level of protection from harm. Is there a human right of self-defence? If so what is to keep such a decision from being made even though the majority of political parties would never run on such a platform? Also, if such a decision were made would you see it in the same light as this one given that ____land democratically decided to put the ECHR in place?
I prefer to keep the courts out of the political discourse other than in cases where politicos violate the law of the land in which case I want them to deal with those cases swiftly and decisively. Especially in Europe where we do not elect our judges and prosecutors and as such have no means to reign in activists within the justice department (which do exist, see e.g. 'Hilda' and 'Ruben' in Sweden [1,2]) I want there to be a clear separation between the two.
I'm old enough to remember when people were protesting against international courts overriding national democracy, but that doesn't say much as it was last decade:
Yes? We should stop extracting finite resources from the planet and polluting a limited environment without paying our future self the corresponding pportunity costs.
And these people are from the country on earth where the population has the greatest control over their government. Switzerland isn't some rogue state, the population has legal means to force the government to do essentially whatever they want. So the human rights violation is being committed by the population themselves.
If Switzerland is commiting a human rights violation by doing this, what monumental human rights violation is committed by India. A country which uses the oceans to distribute it's waste globally? How about China, burning endless coal?
It really must be dismaying to see how little anyone actually cares about the environment on a global scale, for someone who actually cares about the environment. Instead we have people arguing literal nonsense in a court.