On April 9, 2024, in a room in Strasbourg, elderly women and young people cried and celebrated together. Suddenly, both groups congratulated each other on what is likely the biggest judicial victory to date for climate rights—a groundbreaking legal approach adopted by environmental lawyers and climate advocates from across Europe. Half a year later, many of them gathered in Brussels to reflect on this evolution and its future prospects.
The bittersweet moment in April was triggered by two rulings from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on prominent cases involving climate justice and intergenerational equity. In the first case, the plaintiffs, Duarte Agostinho and others, lost their case against Portugal and 32 other states, while in the second, the group known as KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz won against Switzerland.
Dr. Elisabeth Stern, a board member of the Swiss Senior Women for Climate Protection, recalled the emotional experience in the ECHR chamber at an international conference held in Brussels on October 15, 2024. “We all congratulated each other because the (ECHR) ruling was very clear: climate protection is a Human Right! A state has an obligation to protect its population from the serious effects of climate change.”
Launch of Climate Rights
Stern’s conclusion was one of the highlights of the event, which brought together around 150 lawyers, legal experts, researchers, and climate advocates from across the EU, both in person and online. Linking human rights with climate change was the main objective of the conference, hosted by Justice & Environment (J&E), a network of lawyers and organizations supporting environmental justice across Europe, at the EU Committee of the Regions in Brussels.
The Brussels event marked the end of an EU-funded pilot project titled Debates and Actions on Climate and Environment (DACE). J&E executed the project in collaboration with the International Institute for Law and the Environment (IIDMA, Spain), BlueLink (Bulgaria), the Alliance of Austrian Environmental Movement (ÖKOBÜRO, Austria), the Association of Environmental Law and Management (EMLA, Hungary), the Legal Center for the Protection of Human Rights (PIC, Slovenia), and the Estonian Environmental Law Center (EELC, Estonia).
“Our work reflects the global momentum on the climate change agenda by applying the rule of law and relevant rights,” stated Csaba Kiss, a Hungarian environmental lawyer and J&E coordinator, who inaugurated the conference. The DACE project explored and promoted climate rights—a new concept that encompasses both established and emerging categories of rights internationally, within the EU, and at the national level, all relevant to climate change, including substantive and procedural rights impacted by climate issues.
Empowering Civic Legal Action
“We see climate rights as pathways toward a fair and committed society, where climate justice and protection against climate impacts take a prominent place on the agenda of governments, businesses, and the media,” explained Plamen Peev. As the lead legal expert at BlueLink, Peev was the primary author of an authoritative climate rights study presented at the conference. This study introduced a robust concept of climate rights intended to guide national and EU-level activities.
Defining and understanding climate-related justice and responsibility is timely, but requires broader engagement from diverse stakeholders and perspectives, stated Julian Popov, former Bulgarian Environment Minister and EU Commissioner candidate, who was one of the keynote speakers. Jacob Werksman, senior advisor and chief negotiator of the European Commission’s DG CLIMA, also noted that climate justice itself is a “contentious term.”
Werksman criticized international consensus-based decision-making norms, explaining that decisions tend to be based on the lowest common denominator, which isn’t necessarily helpful. International legal instruments and treaties, including the Paris Agreement, tend to protect the status quo rather than provide the clear standards needed to resolve disputes. International courts and national jurisdictions are now stepping into the space left open by the Paris Agreement and are providing more promising responses, Werksman observed. He distinguished between: procedural justice, distributive justice (which defines and rationalizes state responsibilities), restorative justice (which provides relief or remedy), and intergenerational justice.
Intergenerational Justice
“Only those alive today can address the concerns of those yet to be born,” Werksman noted, emphasizing the structural problem that arises when states fail to enable effective participation by individuals or groups in the shaping of climate laws. He warned that the effort to pursue justice could inadvertently hinder justice itself.
Climate rights and climate citizenship must be interpreted with special regard for children, asserted Kata Dozsa, an associate professor at the Brussels Free University’s School of Governance. The concern for future generations has the potential to drive transformative legislative impact, added Dr. Katalin Sulyok, an advisor to Hungary’s Ombudsman for Future Generations.
Recent changes in legal practice demonstrated by the ECHR ruling in the KlimaSeniorinnen case echo the concept of intergenerational equity, said Sulyok. She explained that the goal of ensuring a safe climate for future generations is being enforced by international courts through three main types of legal standards:
- extending human rights into the future,
- imposing due diligence obligations on states and corporations toward future generations, and
- abolishing age-based discrimination.
Spanish lawyer Ana Barreira, an adjunct professor of International Environmental Law at IE University, advocated for multi-level governance in implementing climate law, highlighting the role of regions and municipalities in achieving Paris Agreement targets. Barreira is also the director of IIDMA.
In a 2023 national survey conducted by the DACE project team, 68% of Slovenians believed it is the state’s responsibility to protect citizens from the negative consequences of climate change. Additionally, 83% of Slovenian residents supported the legal responsibility of both private and public companies to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, according to a 2023 YouGov survey.
Corporate Accountability
Aljosa Petek, a lawyer at PIC, pointed out that companies contribute significantly to climate change, with 82% of Slovenians believing that banks are accountable for the actions of the companies they invest in. Surprisingly, 73% felt that individuals should have the right to directly sue major greenhouse gas emitters for damages caused by climate change impacts, including floods, droughts, and heatwaves, Petek clarified.
Triin Jaadmaa, a lawyer at EELC, presented the Estonian Supreme Court ruling that overturned the permit for a new oil shale energy plant built by Enefit. Jaadmaa was one of the lawyers representing the plaintiff, Fridays for Future Estonia. The court’s decision affirmed that public authorities are legally obliged to address the climate crisis and that national development documents’ climate targets must be considered, she noted.
Besides legal reasoning, the Estonian Supreme Court also based its decision on science, referencing IPCC reports and Estonia’s greenhouse gas projections.
Communicating Climate Rights in a Carbon-Intensive Media Landscape
The shift away from scientific reasoning and the insufficient quality of independent, state- and industry-neutral scientific reporting are some of the factors that make public communication of climate rights an “uphill battle,” stated Pavel Antonov, executive editor of BlueLink. Presenting the communication goals of the DACE project, for which BlueLink is also responsible, Antonov noted a growing bias against EU climate policies gradually seeping into journalism and media. “Economic and political dependencies prevent mainstream media from adequately informing the public about climate change and advocating for the rights of affected individuals and communities,” commented Antonov.
The Debates and Actions on Climate and Environment project is funded by the European Union and coordinated by J&E in collaboration with the International Institute for Law and the Environment (IIDMA, Spain), the BlueLink Foundation (Bulgaria), the Alliance of the Austrian Environmental Movement (ÖKOBÜRO, Austria), the Association for Environmental Law and Management (EMLA, Hungary), the Legal Center for Human Rights Protection (PIC, Slovenia), and the Estonian Environmental Law Center (EELC, Estonia)
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or [name of the granting authority]. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
