(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
In Landmark Climate Ruling, European Court Faults Switzerland [1]
['Isabella Kwai', 'Emma Bubola']
Date: 2024-04-09
Europe’s top human rights court said on Tuesday that the Swiss government had violated its citizens’ human rights by not doing enough to stop climate change, a landmark ruling that experts said could bolster activists hoping to use human rights law to hold governments to account.
In the case, which was brought by a group called KlimaSeniorinnen, or Senior Women for Climate Protection, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, said that Switzerland had failed to meet its target in reducing carbon emissions and must act to address that shortcoming.
The women, age 64 and up, said that their health was at risk during heat waves related to global warming. They argued that the Swiss government, by not doing enough to mitigate against global warming, had violated their rights.
It is the latest decision in a broader wave of climate-related lawsuits that aim to push governments to act against global warming, and countries’ domestic courts have handled similar cases. But experts said it was the first instance of an international court determining that governments were legally obligated to meet their climate targets under human rights law.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/world/europe/climate-human-rights.html
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
