7 ms·

Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

41 points by hubraumhugo 3y ago

Rochus 3y ago
> https://www.klimaseniorinnen.ch/uber-uns/ https://www.klimaseniorinnen.ch/uber-uns/ Apparently not a single physicist or medical doctor on the board, but many politicians and lawyers. EDIT: this is an easily verifiable fact, but apparently there are people here for whom even that is too much.
- Y-bar 3y ago
  Why is that a relevant take-away? Are you saying that not a singe physicist agrees that "[…] the current climate targets and measures are not sufficient to limit global warming to a safe level."?
  - Rochus 3y ago
    That would be a pretty far-fetched interpretation. Let's stick to the obvious. One should be able to expect that a board of an association that is committed to a cause should have at least a few people on it who have formal training in that cause and appropriate professional experience. Otherwise, you could ask yourself with good reason why they can't find any experts to officially represent their cause.
    - yareal 3y ago
      Are they doing science? Or are they litigating to influence their government based on the science. I'd argue that, contextually, they do have people with formal training on the cause - influencing governmental change. Those folks can hire experts to interpret white papers if needed, but they aren't participating in science, they are consuming it. (I don't need to be an excellent musician to advocate for the belief that Spotify doesn't equitably pay musicians. If I wanted to legislatively address that, I'd need lawyers and politicians, not musicians. And I could build a data driven case without many musicians at all.)
      - zmgsabst 3y ago
        I don’t take a group that’s all advocacy, zero expertise as a serious attempt to solve a complex challenge facing society. If you wanted to be taken seriously about “equitable pay for musicians”, then you’d absolutely need people who understand the economics and market dynamics of the music industry. Only having legal expertise makes it seem like you’re merely lobbying your personal feelings — not about a real problem. > And I could build a data driven case without many musicians at all. But not without data scientists, economists, and probably music industry insiders to provide data. And that’s not a job for lawyers and lobbyists; which was the original question.
        fsflover 3y ago
        The difference here is that there is nothing unclear about the climate change. Opinion of the experts is available online, without a need to involve them in every action.
      - Rochus 3y ago
        Would you buy stocks in a biochemistry or medicine company without a single biochemist or physician on the board?
        fsflover 3y ago
        A biochemistry or medicine company must do something novel to be relevant. In this case it's not necessary.
        Rochus 3y ago
        Then you haven't understood that direct democracy works by convincing fellow citicens to vote for a new idea or direction. People are critical, especially if the new idea or direction restricts their comfort. So you can't just claim anything, you have to win trust with authority and evidence. But it seems that this committee would rather go to court than convince fellow citizens of the validity of their arguments.
  - IAMMidway 3y ago
    Becaus it shows the ECHR is not a serious institution if PR-tricks like using "seniors" to bring forth your case helps you win. The ECHR needs to be abolished and Switzerland needs to leave this court.
    - TheGeminon 3y ago
      So this would be a worthwhile case if a youthful physicist was bringing the complaint? As per the article, they are arguing that seniors are particularly affected by climate change due to heat waves, and these are causing deaths. The 2022 heatwaves had hundreds of deaths attributed to climate change in Switzerland: https://lenews.ch/2023/07/08/climate-change-behind-60-percent-of-swiss-heat-deaths/ https://lenews.ch/2023/07/08/climate-change-behind-60-percen...
      - tomp 3y ago
        The issue with people dying from heat waves has nothing to do with climate change. The issue is that Switzerland outlawed air conditioning for private homes (still allowed in shopping centres though!)
        myrion 3y ago
        Show me that law, because as far as I can tell, that's complete nonsense. I know of a bunch of people who legally purchased and installed aircon in their homes.
        tomp 3y ago
        It might vary by canton, I’m in Zürich. https://archive.is/7g3A9 https://archive.is/7g3A9 Yeah you can buy the mobile AC unit, but none of the new-builds in the past 10+ years come with a built-in (fixed) unit.
  - Rochus 3y ago
    > Are you saying that not a singe physicist agrees that "[…] the current climate targets and measures are not sufficient to limit global warming to a safe level."? Ironically, since the present court case is essentially driven and funded by Greanpeace, even the co-founder of Greenpeace publicly states that there is no climate emergency. See e.g https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20220208/114392/HHRG-117-GO00-20220208-SD011.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20220208/114392/HHRG.... Here is a very interesting new documentary which covers relevant facts presented by renowned scientists and Nobel Prize winners, everyone interested in this topic should have a look at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmfRG8-RHEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmfRG8-RHEI.
    - Rochus 3y ago
      And here is a very interesting review about what seems to be true or not true in the referenced movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kue5-vJGB3g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kue5-vJGB3g.
- notimetorelax 3y ago
  Doesn’t seem relevant. A different set of skills needed to promote a policy.
  - blueflow 3y ago
    Namely: The ability to speak.
- kadkadels 3y ago
  They have more than 2500 Members, you know every single one of them? Impressive.
bschne 3y ago
I am Swiss, and I think we should contribute as much as we possibly can, despite being a relatively small country without too much direct global impact. But I'm curious about the legal technicalities here (because IANAL): You can surely argue for a country having to better protect its own citizens through e.g. adaptations, but no matter how you look at it I don't think Swiss emissions can reasonably be viewed as a proximal cause of any substantial climate-related harm to Swiss citizens. Comparing consumption-based emissions from OWID [1] shows CH is responsible for 118.68 million / 37.15 billion ≈ 0.3% of global emissions, so even going net-zero instantly would hardly make a dent. Under this perspective, even the most ambitious climate policy we implement would hardly protect our citizens from adverse impacts by a meaningful amount? Does anyone who understands human rights law better than me have thoughts on this? 1. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-emissions
- thegrim000 3y ago
  I'm curious if countries like China, India, and Russia, have similar lawsuits and similar initiatives to reduce their emissions. I can't recall ever seeing a single story.
  - api 3y ago
    Russia is in full scale climate denial. China is building a lot of solar, wind, and nuclear but still also building coal. Don’t know about India but it seems the answer is mostly no. I’ve always argued that if we can’t make non carbon emitting sources cheaper than coal and gas (full load leveled cost) and dispatchable (batteries) we have no hope of cutting emissions and everything else is theater. Right now it seems that burning fossil fuel is still the cheapest way to generate energy without any regulations, taxes, or subsidies. Yes that includes nuclear.
    - js8 3y ago
      Last year, China built roughly 4 times more renewables than coal. They argue that they build coal because renewables are unreliable, but surprisingly it was hydro what was unreliable (thanks to droughts brought by climate change), not solar and wind, as people are led to believe. Personally, I think China still building coal is organizational inertia more than anything. Anyway, there was an article here that also claimed 80% energy investments in the U.S. are renewables. Isn't this 4:1 ratio interesting? Doesn't this tell you that (despite the noise), both China and US are on a very similar path?
constantcrying 3y ago
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. 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. 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 challenge, for someone who cares about the environment. Instead we have people arguing literal nonsense in a court.
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  I agree, adding a few thoughts — Because it’s not about solving a serious challenge facing humanity — it’s about the social credit of virtue signaling: - Establishing consensus and working with stakeholders would be hard. - Whining to an unelected, transnational body to force your “benevolence” on your nation is easy. If people are concerned about the unrest in Europe (farmer protests; collapse of faith in institutions; rise of populists), or more broadly about delivering results on issues challenging humanity, this is counterproductive.
- kadkadels 3y ago
  You seem to be confused about how the Swiss legal system works, so let me clarify it for you: The government is bound by laws, constitutional principles, and institutional mechanisms that prevent the majority from infringing on the rights of minorities or violating international obligations. Of course the population can't force the goverment "to do whatever they want" and this is not how any of it works. >Which may or may not even effect the people who are suing at all. It's evident that the lawsuit does affect them since they reside in Switzerland and are therefore only able to hold Switzerland accountable. If they were to reside in Germany, France, or any other country, they would have the freedom to pursue legal action against those respective nations. This aspect was also the reason for the dismissal of the Portuguese case; the plaintiffs were suing countries other than Portugal. >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. It is common practice for decisions concerning human rights abuses by the Swiss Supreme Court to be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, which serves as the ultimate authority in such matters. >It really must be dismaying to see how little anyone actually cares about the environment on a global challenge, for someone who cares about the environment. Instead we have people arguing literal nonsense in a court. They did what they could and took responsibility for what they could. Which is a lot more than other people do. >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? To benchmark against India or China regarding pollution sets the standard at its lowest. If we continue this pattern, finger-pointing will never stop. It's important that we raise our standards and lead by example.
flexie 3y ago
The court just ruled and it did indeed find that Switzerland had failed to comply with its duties concerning climate change: https://www.echr.coe.int/w/grand-chamber-rulings-in-the-climate-change-cases https://www.echr.coe.int/w/grand-chamber-rulings-in-the-clim... "The Court found that Article 8 of the Convention encompasses a right to effective protection by the State authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on lives, health, well-being and quality of life. However, it held that the four individual applicants did not fulfil the victim-status criteria under Article 34 of the Convention and declared their complaints inadmissible. The applicant association, in contrast, had the right to bring a complaint. The Court held that there had been a violation of the right to respect for private and family life of the Convention and that there had been a violation of the right to access to the court. The Court found that the Swiss Confederation had failed to comply with its duties (“positive obligations”) under the Convention concerning climate change."
cynicalsecurity 3y ago
Next: Europe loses the fight and submits to the coalition of authoritarian regimes. Those swiss baboushkas will be writing complaints from their gulag cells in broken Russian or Chinese. Nice job. When conquered by the authoritarian regimes, we are going to lose the environment much quicker while losing our freedom, democracy and human rights too.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  No need for conquering, I am appaled that in the recent Portuguese elections, my fellow citzens decided that the best way to use their voting rights, was to do a protest vote on the extreme right parties, briging them to the highest number on parliament since the dictorship ended. Two months away of celebrating the return of freedom to the country, the end of colonial war, and the secret state police doing whatever they felt like.
  - neoromantique 3y ago
    Offtopic: How serious of a worry is it? I'm considering moving to Portugal next year to be further away from Russian border, from outside it looks like fairly quiet and stable-ish place.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      Not sure on how it will evolve, right now the parliament is mostly composed by right parties, and the moderated right party alliances (which won), can hardly do anything without the votes from extreme right parties or the other major party theh socialists (moderated left). So it depends pretty much how they will do their goverment deals with other parties, as means to get their proposals approved. From 230 seats, 58 belong to the extreme right, up from 20 in 2022. There is unfortunely a trend there, and even if we are quite cool on these left/right matters at the population level, it suffices that the new laws aren't that cool any longer.
      - neoromantique 3y ago
hubraumhugo 3y ago
Switzerland was the most participatory democratic country in the world in 2023[0] and Swiss voters rejected a stricter CO2 law last year[1]. This court ruling seems quite perplexing then, doesn't it? [0] https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/ https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/ [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/switzerland-votes-on-controversial-co2-law/46695016 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/switzerland-votes-on-c...
- Rochus 3y ago
  In every democracy there are people who are not satisfied with referendum results. Most come to terms with it because they still have confidence in the democratic system, and a few, often driven by lobyists, try instead to impose their will on the majority through some kind of bureaucratic trickery. In this case, it is interesting to see who is actually behind this: https://www.greenpeace.ch/de/erkunden/klima/klimagerechtigkeit/ https://www.greenpeace.ch/de/erkunden/klima/klimagerechtigke...
- TheGeminon 3y ago
  Democracies are more than capable of passing laws that violate the rights of minorities.
- bojan 3y ago
  What does it matter? The laws upon which this ruling was based do not, and should not, care for current political trends.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Aachen 3y ago
  If people would vote for what is good for them, the outcomes would look quote different. My father says he votes one party because of the financial aspect and laughs at me for voting a different party. The most recent election's plans showed, when vetted by an independent buro (I think it's a government agency), that this party's plans would be much better for basically every income group, and equally good for the top 10%, compared to the party my dad votes for. Do you think that sways him in the slightest? He's a well-educated high-income individual that reads a lot and stays current, who I'd have expected to have rational voting behavior if anyone has that. Most people vote for parties whose plans don't match what they say they'll accomplish, such as lower taxes or whatever else they believe will be good for them. A greater percentage of naturalised immigrants than those with local heritage voting for the one party wanting to stop immigration and abolish religious freedoms, that sort of thing. If someone has a better study on this, I'd be much interested, but that a court (in applying fundamental rights made up by people whose elected job it is to care for a country) disagrees with the average person on the street is not surprising to me
fsflover 3y ago
Another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39977995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39977995
snehk 3y ago
That's like telling someone it was wrong of them to not do CPR after they've found a rotting corpse without a head. Switzerland has so little impact on the global climate, it's laughable and nothing Switzerland could do would change anything whatsoever. Is there even a technology available that could show the impact on climate change were Switzerland's CO2 magically zero tomorrow?
seydor 3y ago
So what must the swiss government do if it wishes to comply? they control a lot of the world's financial system so they can threaten to cut off funding lines of poor polluting countries. But that would cause great unrest in those poor countries and undoubtedly would worsen the lives of many many more, in order to improve the quality of life of these 4 swiss ladies. Can citizens from every country bring similar cases to the court? Then they will have no option but to produce hundreds of mutually-contradictory rulings. I wonder if they have set an interesting precedent for themselves
tticvs 3y ago
The woman pictured in the article (Anne Mahrer) is also a staunch anti-nuclear activist. She has some incredible audacity bringing this case. In a just world she would be a defendant not a plaintiff.

41 points by hubraumhugo 3y ago

> https://www.klimaseniorinnen.ch/uber-uns/ https://www.klimaseniorinnen.ch/uber-uns/ Apparently not a single physicist or medical doctor on the board, but many politicians and lawyers. EDIT: this is an easily verifiable fact, but apparently there are people here for whom even that is too much.

Y-bar 3y ago
Why is that a relevant take-away? Are you saying that not a singe physicist agrees that "[…] the current climate targets and measures are not sufficient to limit global warming to a safe level."?
- Rochus 3y ago
  That would be a pretty far-fetched interpretation. Let's stick to the obvious. One should be able to expect that a board of an association that is committed to a cause should have at least a few people on it who have formal training in that cause and appropriate professional experience. Otherwise, you could ask yourself with good reason why they can't find any experts to officially represent their cause.
  - yareal 3y ago
    Are they doing science? Or are they litigating to influence their government based on the science. I'd argue that, contextually, they do have people with formal training on the cause - influencing governmental change. Those folks can hire experts to interpret white papers if needed, but they aren't participating in science, they are consuming it. (I don't need to be an excellent musician to advocate for the belief that Spotify doesn't equitably pay musicians. If I wanted to legislatively address that, I'd need lawyers and politicians, not musicians. And I could build a data driven case without many musicians at all.)
    - zmgsabst 3y ago
      I don’t take a group that’s all advocacy, zero expertise as a serious attempt to solve a complex challenge facing society. If you wanted to be taken seriously about “equitable pay for musicians”, then you’d absolutely need people who understand the economics and market dynamics of the music industry. Only having legal expertise makes it seem like you’re merely lobbying your personal feelings — not about a real problem. > And I could build a data driven case without many musicians at all. But not without data scientists, economists, and probably music industry insiders to provide data. And that’s not a job for lawyers and lobbyists; which was the original question.
      - fsflover 3y ago
        The difference here is that there is nothing unclear about the climate change. Opinion of the experts is available online, without a need to involve them in every action.
    - Rochus 3y ago
      Would you buy stocks in a biochemistry or medicine company without a single biochemist or physician on the board?
      - fsflover 3y ago
        A biochemistry or medicine company must do something novel to be relevant. In this case it's not necessary.
        Rochus 3y ago
        Then you haven't understood that direct democracy works by convincing fellow citicens to vote for a new idea or direction. People are critical, especially if the new idea or direction restricts their comfort. So you can't just claim anything, you have to win trust with authority and evidence. But it seems that this committee would rather go to court than convince fellow citizens of the validity of their arguments.
- IAMMidway 3y ago
  Becaus it shows the ECHR is not a serious institution if PR-tricks like using "seniors" to bring forth your case helps you win. The ECHR needs to be abolished and Switzerland needs to leave this court.
  - TheGeminon 3y ago
    So this would be a worthwhile case if a youthful physicist was bringing the complaint? As per the article, they are arguing that seniors are particularly affected by climate change due to heat waves, and these are causing deaths. The 2022 heatwaves had hundreds of deaths attributed to climate change in Switzerland: https://lenews.ch/2023/07/08/climate-change-behind-60-percent-of-swiss-heat-deaths/ https://lenews.ch/2023/07/08/climate-change-behind-60-percen...
    - tomp 3y ago
      The issue with people dying from heat waves has nothing to do with climate change. The issue is that Switzerland outlawed air conditioning for private homes (still allowed in shopping centres though!)
      - myrion 3y ago
        Show me that law, because as far as I can tell, that's complete nonsense. I know of a bunch of people who legally purchased and installed aircon in their homes.
        tomp 3y ago
        It might vary by canton, I’m in Zürich. https://archive.is/7g3A9 https://archive.is/7g3A9 Yeah you can buy the mobile AC unit, but none of the new-builds in the past 10+ years come with a built-in (fixed) unit.
- Rochus 3y ago
  > Are you saying that not a singe physicist agrees that "[…] the current climate targets and measures are not sufficient to limit global warming to a safe level."? Ironically, since the present court case is essentially driven and funded by Greanpeace, even the co-founder of Greenpeace publicly states that there is no climate emergency. See e.g https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20220208/114392/HHRG-117-GO00-20220208-SD011.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO00/20220208/114392/HHRG.... Here is a very interesting new documentary which covers relevant facts presented by renowned scientists and Nobel Prize winners, everyone interested in this topic should have a look at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmfRG8-RHEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmfRG8-RHEI.
  - Rochus 3y ago
    And here is a very interesting review about what seems to be true or not true in the referenced movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kue5-vJGB3g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kue5-vJGB3g.
notimetorelax 3y ago
Doesn’t seem relevant. A different set of skills needed to promote a policy.
- blueflow 3y ago
  Namely: The ability to speak.
kadkadels 3y ago
They have more than 2500 Members, you know every single one of them? Impressive.

bschne 3y ago

I am Swiss, and I think we should contribute as much as we possibly can, despite being a relatively small country without too much direct global impact. But I'm curious about the legal technicalities here (because IANAL): You can surely argue for a country having to better protect its own citizens through e.g. adaptations, but no matter how you look at it I don't think Swiss emissions can reasonably be viewed as a proximal cause of any substantial climate-related harm to Swiss citizens. Comparing consumption-based emissions from OWID [1] shows CH is responsible for 118.68 million / 37.15 billion ≈ 0.3% of global emissions, so even going net-zero instantly would hardly make a dent. Under this perspective, even the most ambitious climate policy we implement would hardly protect our citizens from adverse impacts by a meaningful amount? Does anyone who understands human rights law better than me have thoughts on this? 1. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-co2-emissions

thegrim000 3y ago
I'm curious if countries like China, India, and Russia, have similar lawsuits and similar initiatives to reduce their emissions. I can't recall ever seeing a single story.
- api 3y ago
  Russia is in full scale climate denial. China is building a lot of solar, wind, and nuclear but still also building coal. Don’t know about India but it seems the answer is mostly no. I’ve always argued that if we can’t make non carbon emitting sources cheaper than coal and gas (full load leveled cost) and dispatchable (batteries) we have no hope of cutting emissions and everything else is theater. Right now it seems that burning fossil fuel is still the cheapest way to generate energy without any regulations, taxes, or subsidies. Yes that includes nuclear.
  - js8 3y ago
    Last year, China built roughly 4 times more renewables than coal. They argue that they build coal because renewables are unreliable, but surprisingly it was hydro what was unreliable (thanks to droughts brought by climate change), not solar and wind, as people are led to believe. Personally, I think China still building coal is organizational inertia more than anything. Anyway, there was an article here that also claimed 80% energy investments in the U.S. are renewables. Isn't this 4:1 ratio interesting? Doesn't this tell you that (despite the noise), both China and US are on a very similar path?

constantcrying 3y ago

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. 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. 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 challenge, for someone who cares about the environment. Instead we have people arguing literal nonsense in a court.

zmgsabst 3y ago
I agree, adding a few thoughts — Because it’s not about solving a serious challenge facing humanity — it’s about the social credit of virtue signaling: - Establishing consensus and working with stakeholders would be hard. - Whining to an unelected, transnational body to force your “benevolence” on your nation is easy. If people are concerned about the unrest in Europe (farmer protests; collapse of faith in institutions; rise of populists), or more broadly about delivering results on issues challenging humanity, this is counterproductive.
kadkadels 3y ago
You seem to be confused about how the Swiss legal system works, so let me clarify it for you: The government is bound by laws, constitutional principles, and institutional mechanisms that prevent the majority from infringing on the rights of minorities or violating international obligations. Of course the population can't force the goverment "to do whatever they want" and this is not how any of it works. >Which may or may not even effect the people who are suing at all. It's evident that the lawsuit does affect them since they reside in Switzerland and are therefore only able to hold Switzerland accountable. If they were to reside in Germany, France, or any other country, they would have the freedom to pursue legal action against those respective nations. This aspect was also the reason for the dismissal of the Portuguese case; the plaintiffs were suing countries other than Portugal. >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. It is common practice for decisions concerning human rights abuses by the Swiss Supreme Court to be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, which serves as the ultimate authority in such matters. >It really must be dismaying to see how little anyone actually cares about the environment on a global challenge, for someone who cares about the environment. Instead we have people arguing literal nonsense in a court. They did what they could and took responsibility for what they could. Which is a lot more than other people do. >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? To benchmark against India or China regarding pollution sets the standard at its lowest. If we continue this pattern, finger-pointing will never stop. It's important that we raise our standards and lead by example.

flexie 3y ago

The court just ruled and it did indeed find that Switzerland had failed to comply with its duties concerning climate change: https://www.echr.coe.int/w/grand-chamber-rulings-in-the-climate-change-cases https://www.echr.coe.int/w/grand-chamber-rulings-in-the-clim... "The Court found that Article 8 of the Convention encompasses a right to effective protection by the State authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on lives, health, well-being and quality of life. However, it held that the four individual applicants did not fulfil the victim-status criteria under Article 34 of the Convention and declared their complaints inadmissible. The applicant association, in contrast, had the right to bring a complaint. The Court held that there had been a violation of the right to respect for private and family life of the Convention and that there had been a violation of the right to access to the court. The Court found that the Swiss Confederation had failed to comply with its duties (“positive obligations”) under the Convention concerning climate change."

cynicalsecurity 3y ago

Next: Europe loses the fight and submits to the coalition of authoritarian regimes. Those swiss baboushkas will be writing complaints from their gulag cells in broken Russian or Chinese. Nice job. When conquered by the authoritarian regimes, we are going to lose the environment much quicker while losing our freedom, democracy and human rights too.

pjmlp 3y ago
No need for conquering, I am appaled that in the recent Portuguese elections, my fellow citzens decided that the best way to use their voting rights, was to do a protest vote on the extreme right parties, briging them to the highest number on parliament since the dictorship ended. Two months away of celebrating the return of freedom to the country, the end of colonial war, and the secret state police doing whatever they felt like.
- neoromantique 3y ago
  Offtopic: How serious of a worry is it? I'm considering moving to Portugal next year to be further away from Russian border, from outside it looks like fairly quiet and stable-ish place.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Not sure on how it will evolve, right now the parliament is mostly composed by right parties, and the moderated right party alliances (which won), can hardly do anything without the votes from extreme right parties or the other major party theh socialists (moderated left). So it depends pretty much how they will do their goverment deals with other parties, as means to get their proposals approved. From 230 seats, 58 belong to the extreme right, up from 20 in 2022. There is unfortunely a trend there, and even if we are quite cool on these left/right matters at the population level, it suffices that the new laws aren't that cool any longer.
    - neoromantique 3y ago

hubraumhugo 3y ago

Switzerland was the most participatory democratic country in the world in 2023[0] and Swiss voters rejected a stricter CO2 law last year[1]. This court ruling seems quite perplexing then, doesn't it? [0] https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/ https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/ [1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/switzerland-votes-on-controversial-co2-law/46695016 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/switzerland-votes-on-c...

Rochus 3y ago
In every democracy there are people who are not satisfied with referendum results. Most come to terms with it because they still have confidence in the democratic system, and a few, often driven by lobyists, try instead to impose their will on the majority through some kind of bureaucratic trickery. In this case, it is interesting to see who is actually behind this: https://www.greenpeace.ch/de/erkunden/klima/klimagerechtigkeit/ https://www.greenpeace.ch/de/erkunden/klima/klimagerechtigke...
TheGeminon 3y ago
Democracies are more than capable of passing laws that violate the rights of minorities.
bojan 3y ago
What does it matter? The laws upon which this ruling was based do not, and should not, care for current political trends.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Aachen 3y ago
If people would vote for what is good for them, the outcomes would look quote different. My father says he votes one party because of the financial aspect and laughs at me for voting a different party. The most recent election's plans showed, when vetted by an independent buro (I think it's a government agency), that this party's plans would be much better for basically every income group, and equally good for the top 10%, compared to the party my dad votes for. Do you think that sways him in the slightest? He's a well-educated high-income individual that reads a lot and stays current, who I'd have expected to have rational voting behavior if anyone has that. Most people vote for parties whose plans don't match what they say they'll accomplish, such as lower taxes or whatever else they believe will be good for them. A greater percentage of naturalised immigrants than those with local heritage voting for the one party wanting to stop immigration and abolish religious freedoms, that sort of thing. If someone has a better study on this, I'd be much interested, but that a court (in applying fundamental rights made up by people whose elected job it is to care for a country) disagrees with the average person on the street is not surprising to me

fsflover 3y ago

Another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39977995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39977995

snehk 3y ago

That's like telling someone it was wrong of them to not do CPR after they've found a rotting corpse without a head. Switzerland has so little impact on the global climate, it's laughable and nothing Switzerland could do would change anything whatsoever. Is there even a technology available that could show the impact on climate change were Switzerland's CO2 magically zero tomorrow?

seydor 3y ago

So what must the swiss government do if it wishes to comply? they control a lot of the world's financial system so they can threaten to cut off funding lines of poor polluting countries. But that would cause great unrest in those poor countries and undoubtedly would worsen the lives of many many more, in order to improve the quality of life of these 4 swiss ladies. Can citizens from every country bring similar cases to the court? Then they will have no option but to produce hundreds of mutually-contradictory rulings. I wonder if they have set an interesting precedent for themselves

tticvs 3y ago

The woman pictured in the article (Anne Mahrer) is also a staunch anti-nuclear activist. She has some incredible audacity bringing this case. In a just world she would be a defendant not a plaintiff.