The Convention, the Court and the Climate: The Future in the Balance

KlimaSeniorinnen follow-up: five issues and ways forward With its KlimaSeniorinnen judgment, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) established a Convention-based climate mitigation framework and introduced international review with the overarching climate change policies of the European Convention on Human Rights’ Contracting States. This is a significant development, both in the context of climate change and human rights. It is natural that this groundbreaking judgment reflects a work in progress. Clarifications and adjustments are needed for this new legal paradigm to work well within the context of both climate change and human rights. As people within and beyond the Court look ahead, the question is what the Court should do next. A variety of issues arise in the pending climate cases , as well as before the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe as it supervises the execution of the judgment . In my view, the key to a constructive future role for the Court and the Convention lies in these five action points: clarify the long-term mitigation target to prevent European ambitions from backsliding; seize the (missed) opportunity to support the Paris Agreement; tailor the procedural requirements in view of the establishment of a mitigation framework; safeguard the democratic foundation for economy-wide transformation; and anticipate pressure on individuals’ rights as authorities pursue collective (climate) interests. In the following sections, I explain this agenda in simplified terms and suggest ways forward. For the sake of brevity, I concentrate on Article 8 of the Convention and climate change mitigation. Clarify the long-term mitigation target to prevent European ambitions from backsliding The most urgent issue concerns the risk that the articulation of the long-term mitigation target in the KlimaSeniorinnen judgment may encourage a backsliding of European mitigation ambitions. Paradoxically, the Court’s first climate change judgment may have provided […]

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