Landmark Climate Cases at the ECHR and IACHR

On April 9, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered a major trio of decisions dealing for the first time with climate change: Carême v. France (application no. 7189/21), Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others (application no. 39371/20) and Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland (application no. 53600/20). While two of the cases were dismissed on procedural grounds, one historic decision was made arguing that Switzerland had violated human rights due to climate inaction, leading the Court to rule that climate change endangers human rights and setting what has been qualified as a groundbreaking precedent.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held its 166th Regular Session in Barbados from April 22 to 26, in a public hearing on the Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights submitted by Colombia and Chile in January 2023. The latter aims to clarify the scope of the state obligations for responding to the climate emergency under the frame of international human rights law.

This interactive webinar aims to debunk the main elements of the three European cases, and to critically assess their (global) implications for climate litigation and politics. It will moreover open the door to discuss the hearings and the forthcoming Advisory Opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and to analyse the potential links between the conclusions reached by the two courts.

Programme

12h30  The margin of state discretion: KlimaSeniorinnen and the right to a healthy environment– Guest lecture by Corina Heri, Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Zurich

13h45: Coffee Break

14h00 – 15h30: Climate cases at international courts: Human rights protection on both sides of the Atlantic 

• Revolutionary rulings? Benchmarks in the European cases and the Inter-American Advisory Opinion (Kata Dozsa)
• The role of climate science in the KlimaSeniorinnen case (Rosa Pietroiusti)
• The victim status/standing in the KlimaSeniorinnen case, challenging the actio populis prohibition? (Manoëlle Koninckx)
• Intergenerational responsibility and children’s rights considerations in the ECHR and IACHR (Kata Dozsa)
• The Inter-American Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights and its implication for global climate litigation (Liliana Lizarazo Rodriguez)

Speakers

• Kata Dozsa, postdoctoral researcher at the VUB, SUST and associated researcher to the ERC Curiae Virides project
• Manoëlle Koninckx, researcher at the VUB, ERC Curiae Virides project
• Liliana Lizarazo Rodriguez, Research professor BSoG-Vrije Universiteit Brussel PI ERC Curiae Virides project
• Rosa Pietroiusti, doctoral researcher at the VUB, Water and Climate Department