Climate Change Court Cases are on the rise. Here’s why.

Kit Knightly  Apr 11, 2024 off-guardian

Yesterday, a group of senior women from Switzerland won what is being called a “landmark” human rights case concerning “Climate Change”.

At a hearing in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights found the government of Switzerland had violated the women’s human rights by “failing to do enough” to combat the alleged effect of ‘man-made climate change’.

Calling it a “decision that will set a precedent for future climate lawsuits“, Reuters reports:

The European Court of Human Rights’ ruling, in favour of the more than 2,000 Swiss women who brought the case, is expected to resonate in court decisions across Europe and beyond […] The Swiss women, known as KlimaSeniorinnen and aged over 64, said their government’s climate inaction put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. They argued their age and gender made them particularly vulnerable to such climate change impacts.

The report goes on to add [emphasis mine]:

The verdict in the Swiss case, which cannot be appealed, will have international ripple effects, most directly by establishing a binding legal precedent for all 46 countries that are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights

This case is far from an isolated example. It’s part of an ongoing and widespread legal campaign to associate human rights with the spurious climate change agenda.

Famously, a group of Portuguese teens have been attempting to sue 32 countries for years (it used to be 33, but they dropped Ukraine from the list of defendants when it became expedient to do so).

It seems likely neither the Portuguese teens nor the Swiss seniors represent genuine grassroots activism. They are heavily backed by corporate-supported NGOs like Avaaz, the Climate Litigation Network and others. And this tells its own story.

In Strasbourg, the ECHR is already hearing six further “climate change vs human rights” cases (not including the Portuguese teens case which was recently rejected on a technicality).

Other countries from Brazil to South Korea to Australia have similar cases in front of their national courts. Continue reading…