‘A win for all generations’ – Swiss grannies ruling eases loss for young climate activists

The European Court of Human Rights has rejected a case by six young people who took Ireland and 32 other countries to court over their climate-action failures.

In a unanimous decision, the judges said while climate change was a collective issue, the case needed to be fought in national courts first before the European court could get involved.

However, in a landmark judgment on similar issues, they ruled in favour of a group of senior citizens, the so-called “Swiss grannies”, who specifically targeted the Swiss government.

Legal experts say that ruling could equally apply to any country in Europe and opens the way to future actions.

The court found the government violated the rights of the KlimaSeniorinnen and the European Convention on Human Rights in two ways.

It breached Article 8 of the convention, which guarantees protection to private and family life.

By failing to meet emission-reduction targets and lacking sufficient plans to achieve those targets, it failed to adequately safeguard its citizens from “the serious adverse effects of climate change on lives, health, wellbeing and quality of life”.

It also breached Article 6, which gives rights of access to court.

The court ruled that the Swiss courts “had not taken the [Klima-Seniorinnen’s] complaints seriously”.

The Centre for Environmental Justice at Ireland’s Community Law and Mediation charity declared the ruling a historic victory.

“All state parties to the European Convention on Human Rights, including Ireland, have the same obligations as Switzerland under Article 8,” it said.

“This landmark case demonstrates the power of people holding governments accountable for their lack of climate action and will have broader implications for climate litigation globally.”

While upholding the case by the Klima-Seniorinnen group, the court rejected the individual claims of four named members, saying they failed to show they had been directly affected.

The six young applicants, who are all from Portugal and applied under the name Duarte Agostinho, were represented by Irish charity the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN).

They argued their rights to health, wellbeing and freedom were breached by extreme weather caused by climate change which European governments were failing to adequately address.

They said that taking a case against their own government would have limited impact as the combined failures of all 33 governments were to blame.

The court accepted “climate change was undoubtedly a global phenomenon, which should be addressed at the global level by the community of states”.

However, it said each state had its own share of responsibilities to take measures to tackle climate change.

GLAN said despite the ruling, the win for the Klima-Seniorinnen was a “win for all generations”.

“Although our case was ruled inadmissible, the court recognised the climate crisis is an existential threat to humanity,” it said.