6 ms·

European court rules human rights violated by climate inaction

71 points by jaggs 3y ago

seydor 3y ago
So we should punish nature? 3% of her global revenue?
- unglaublich 3y ago
  Yes? We should stop extracting finite resources from the planet and polluting a limited environment without paying our future self the corresponding pportunity costs.
matthewfelgate 3y ago
Is it me or does this seem wrong. Climate action or inaction is a decision we make as a society to tackle or not tackle. Not a "Human Right".
- constantcrying 3y ago
  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.
  - unglaublich 3y ago
    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. [0]: https://www.ejpd.admin.ch/ejpd/de/home/themen/abstimmungen/verantwortungsvolle-unternehmen.html https://www.ejpd.admin.ch/ejpd/de/home/themen/abstimmungen/v...
  - erinnh 3y ago
    Not sure what the point of this argument is. Are you saying that human rights cannot be violated if a democratic decision was made beforehand?
    - constantcrying 3y ago
      No, but the human rights violation here is being committed by the Swiss, who apparently didn't vote hard enough for climate change laws.
      - morby 3y ago
        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.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Said democracy voted to ratify the ECHR in the 70s and re-voted to retain it in 2018. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2018/11/switzerland-defends-human-rights-in-referendum/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2018/11/swit...
- hackerlight 3y ago
  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.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  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.
  - misja111 3y ago
    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.
    - erinnh 3y ago
      In Germany this has already been litigated. The government lost that case as well back in 2021: https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2021/bvg21-031.html https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemit...
    - antientropic 3y ago
      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...)
      - misja111 3y ago
        > Good luck suing Russia. 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.
        ben_w 3y ago
        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.
- unglaublich 3y ago
  Okay, so we can decide as a society to enslave some minority, and then it's not a "human right" to be free?
- arghwhat 3y ago
  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.
  - CarRamrod 3y ago
    >carbon dioxide is air poison I know of a certain kingdom of life that would strongly disagree
    - arghwhat 3y ago
      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.
    - throw0101d 3y ago
      > I know of a certain kingdom of life that would strongly disagree Do the members of that kingdom have standing when it comes to Swiss law?
    - wtfwhateven 3y ago
      Lying about what the commenter said isn't helpful.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Are you suggesting that humans are a type of vegetable?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- aaomidi 3y ago
  ?? The impacts of climate change are going to be seen and felt initially by people who had literally no say in the matter. So no, human rights and climate change are completely intertwined.
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 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.
- personomas 3y ago
  Yes. Very very well said.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > So the human rights violation is being committed by the population themselves. Isn’t that fairly common? Slavery in the US, Nazi concentration camps, Rawandan ethnic cleansing…
  - seydor 3y ago
    Yeah the real question is if climate immutability is a human right
    - adrianN 3y ago
      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).
stabbles 3y ago
More details: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&id=003-7919428-11026177&filename=Judgment%20Verein%20KlimaSeniorinnen%20Schweiz%20and%20Others%20v.%20Switzerland%20-%20Violations%20of%20the%20Convention%20for%20failing%20to%20implement%20sufficient%20measures%20to%20combat%20climate%20change.pdf https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&...
alistairSH 3y ago
Sounds like the beginning of “The Ministry for the Future” by Kim Stanley Robinson.
LAC-Tech 3y ago
Irrelevant court makes an irrelevant verdict.
spacecadet 3y ago
Im so confused by Europe and Climate. I think they are too at this point.
thefz 3y ago
Answer in https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&id=003-7919428-11026177&filename=Judgment%20Verein%20KlimaSeniorinnen%20Schweiz%20and%20Others%20v.%20Switzerland%20-%20Violations%20of%20the%20Convention%20for%20failing%20to%20implement%20sufficient%20measures%20to%20combat%20climate%20change.pdf https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&... > 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 So this is not even a news to discuss. Flagged.
hagbard_c 3y ago
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. [1] https://www.urgenda.nl/en/themas/climate-case/ https://www.urgenda.nl/en/themas/climate-case/
- nehal3m 3y ago
  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.
  - hagbard_c 3y ago
    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?
fsflover 3y ago
Another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39977756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39977756
alistairSH 3y ago
More details: https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/09/top-european-human-rights-court-could-rule-that-governments-have-to-protect-people-from-cl https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/09/top-european-human...

71 points by jaggs 3y ago

seydor 3y ago

So we should punish nature? 3% of her global revenue?

unglaublich 3y ago
Yes? We should stop extracting finite resources from the planet and polluting a limited environment without paying our future self the corresponding pportunity costs.

matthewfelgate 3y ago

Is it me or does this seem wrong. Climate action or inaction is a decision we make as a society to tackle or not tackle. Not a "Human Right".

constantcrying 3y ago
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.
- unglaublich 3y ago
  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. [0]: https://www.ejpd.admin.ch/ejpd/de/home/themen/abstimmungen/verantwortungsvolle-unternehmen.html https://www.ejpd.admin.ch/ejpd/de/home/themen/abstimmungen/v...
- erinnh 3y ago
  Not sure what the point of this argument is. Are you saying that human rights cannot be violated if a democratic decision was made beforehand?
  - constantcrying 3y ago
    No, but the human rights violation here is being committed by the Swiss, who apparently didn't vote hard enough for climate change laws.
    - morby 3y ago
      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.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Said democracy voted to ratify the ECHR in the 70s and re-voted to retain it in 2018. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2018/11/switzerland-defends-human-rights-in-referendum/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2018/11/swit...
hackerlight 3y ago
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.
alistairSH 3y ago
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.
- misja111 3y ago
  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.
  - erinnh 3y ago
    In Germany this has already been litigated. The government lost that case as well back in 2021: https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2021/bvg21-031.html https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemit...
  - antientropic 3y ago
    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...)
    - misja111 3y ago
      > Good luck suing Russia. 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.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        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.
unglaublich 3y ago
Okay, so we can decide as a society to enslave some minority, and then it's not a "human right" to be free?
arghwhat 3y ago
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.
- CarRamrod 3y ago
  >carbon dioxide is air poison I know of a certain kingdom of life that would strongly disagree
  - arghwhat 3y ago
    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.
  - throw0101d 3y ago
    > I know of a certain kingdom of life that would strongly disagree Do the members of that kingdom have standing when it comes to Swiss law?
  - wtfwhateven 3y ago
    Lying about what the commenter said isn't helpful.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Are you suggesting that humans are a type of vegetable?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
aaomidi 3y ago
?? The impacts of climate change are going to be seen and felt initially by people who had literally no say in the matter. So no, human rights and climate change are completely intertwined.

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 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.

personomas 3y ago
Yes. Very very well said.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ceejayoz 3y ago
> So the human rights violation is being committed by the population themselves. Isn’t that fairly common? Slavery in the US, Nazi concentration camps, Rawandan ethnic cleansing…
- seydor 3y ago
  Yeah the real question is if climate immutability is a human right
  - adrianN 3y ago
    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).

stabbles 3y ago

More details: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&id=003-7919428-11026177&filename=Judgment%20Verein%20KlimaSeniorinnen%20Schweiz%20and%20Others%20v.%20Switzerland%20-%20Violations%20of%20the%20Convention%20for%20failing%20to%20implement%20sufficient%20measures%20to%20combat%20climate%20change.pdf https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&...

alistairSH 3y ago

Sounds like the beginning of “The Ministry for the Future” by Kim Stanley Robinson.

LAC-Tech 3y ago

Irrelevant court makes an irrelevant verdict.

spacecadet 3y ago

Im so confused by Europe and Climate. I think they are too at this point.

thefz 3y ago

Answer in https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&id=003-7919428-11026177&filename=Judgment%20Verein%20KlimaSeniorinnen%20Schweiz%20and%20Others%20v.%20Switzerland%20-%20Violations%20of%20the%20Convention%20for%20failing%20to%20implement%20sufficient%20measures%20to%20combat%20climate%20change.pdf https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/pdf/?library=ECHR&... > 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 So this is not even a news to discuss. Flagged.

hagbard_c 3y ago

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. [1] https://www.urgenda.nl/en/themas/climate-case/ https://www.urgenda.nl/en/themas/climate-case/

nehal3m 3y ago
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.
- hagbard_c 3y ago
  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?

fsflover 3y ago

Another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39977756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39977756

alistairSH 3y ago

More details: https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/09/top-european-human-rights-court-could-rule-that-governments-have-to-protect-people-from-cl https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/09/top-european-human...