Category: Paris Agreement

Categories
Deforestation New Zealand Participation rights Participation rights

ELI and Lawyers for Climate Action NZ v. Minister of Climate Change

Summary:
On 10 June 2025, a climate case was filed in the Wellington High Court in Aotearoa New Zealand by the organizations Lawyers for Climate Action NZ and the Environmental Law Initiative (ELI). The case challenges decisions relating to the country’s first (2021-2025) and second emissions reduction plans (2026-2030), including the second plan’s offsetting-led approach, which prioritizes reforestation measures over emissions reductions.

Regarding the first emissions reductions plan, the plaintiffs challenge the ex post cancellation of various projects and actions set out in that plan by the current Government. They argue that domestic legislation, and particularly the Climate Change Response Act, “imposes guardrails on government’s ability to change and cancel climate policies on the fly.” They also challenge the absence of adequate public consultation concerning the changes.

Regarding the second emissions reductions plan, they allege that the Minister of Climate Change is under a legal duty to ensure that emissions budgets are met, which in turn requires the preparation and publication of emissions reductions plans setting out policies and strategies for meeting the emissions budget. The second emissions reduction plan has a wide uncertainty margin, and projects that New Zealand won’t achieve its 2035 target, meaning that according to the plaintiffs it is inadequate, unlawful and too limited in its modeling, as well as taking “an unrealistic and inadequate approach to risk management, relying on a ‘wait and see’ approach it calls ‘Adaptive Management'”. The plaintiffs further challenge the offsetting-led approach of the second emissions reductions plan, and more specifically the decision to prioritize reforestation measures over emissions reductions. They argue that this plan “proceeds on a fundamental error of fact – that forestry offsets and reductions are fungible, when that’s not the case”, and that it does not suffice to comply with the country’s obligations under the Paris Agreement. 

Suggested citation:
Wellington High Court, ELI and Lawyers for Climate Action NZ v. Minister of Climate Change, filed 10 June 2025 (pending).

Further information:
More information is available on ELI’s dedicated website.

The statement of claim is available for download below.

2025-06-10+ERP2+Statement+of+claimDownload

Last updated:
13 March 2026.

  • Tags
Categories
2025 Blog

The ICJ’s Interpretation of the Paris Agreement

Pranav Ganesan, PhD candidate at the University of Zurich

Introduction

The ICJ, in its advisory opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change (AO), makes several notable findings which are worth unpacking and assessing. In this blogpost, I will comment upon some of the Court’s findings related to the interpretation of states’ obligations arising from the 2015 Paris Agreement (Part IV.B of the AO).

Much of the Court’s engagement with the provisions of the climate treaties, in the part of the judgment answering the first question concerning the international obligations of States to protect the climate system and other parts of the environment, was limited to identifying whether they contained procedural or substantive obligations, and obligations of conduct or obligations of result. The most interesting findings of the Court were:

  • That between the two temperature limits specified in the Paris Agreement (PA), viz. 2°C and 1.5°C (art. 2.1(a)), keeping the global average temperature increase below 1.5°C is the ‘primary temperature goal’ (para. 224); and
  • That Paris Agreement Parties’ discretion to determine the substantive content of their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) is limited (para. 245).

In order to arrive at these conclusions, the Court resorted to the rules of interpretation as under the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT).

1.5°C as the Primary Goal

Regarding the 1.5°C temperature limit, the Court considered the Glasgow Pact, as a ‘subsequent agreement’ between the parties to the Paris Agreement regarding its interpretation. Subsequent agreements between all parties to a treaty regarding its interpretation or application must be ‘taken into account’ together with the treaty’s context for the purposes of interpretation (VCLT, Art. 31(3)(a)). In other words, they must be thrown into the ‘crucible’ of all things that inform a treaty provision’s interpretation (see Declaration of Judge Tladi, para. 13). Readers may recall that the Conference of Parties (COP) held at Glasgow in the year 2021 aimed to keep the 1.5°C goal alive. The Glasgow Pact reaffirms Article 2.1(a) of the Paris Agreement, and then:

‘Recognizes that the impacts of climate change will be much lower at the temperature increase of 1.5 °C compared with 2 °C and resolves to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C’ (para. 21, emphasis in the original).

The ICJ also relied on the 2023 UAE Consensus which ‘encourages Parties to come forward in their next nationally determined contributions with ambitious, economy-wide emission reduction targets, covering all greenhouse gases, sectors and categories and aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, as informed by the latest science, in the light of different national circumstances’ (Decision 1/CMA.5, para. 39).

Why is specifying the primacy of 1.5°C important? The mention of two different temperature limits in the Paris Agreement (a comprise formulation considering intractable disagreements between negotiating states) has been a source of some confusion. Mayer has argued that Article 2.1(a) can be explained as prescribing 2°C as the ‘real’ objective, with the States realizing that ‘achieving it is only possible if each of them implements the level of mitigation action that it sees as consistent with a 1.5°C target.’ Rajamani and Werksman have noted that: ‘[a]lthough there are differences in impacts between a 1.5°C temperature rise and a 2°C temperature rise, because the [PA’s] temperature goal is a single goal with two textually inseparable elements—the 1.5° C aspirational goal and the ‘well below 2°C’ goal—the implications of missing the goal are the same in relation to the implementation of the Agreement.’ The implications of missing the goal, according to the above authors, do not include state responsibility for individual Parties as Article 2.1 does not create legally binding obligations. However, there is no confusion as to the provision’s relevance for interpretation (which I shall get to in the next section).

Other international courts which have engaged with this provision have not been as clear about the primacy of the 1.5°C goal under the PA. In its KlimaSeniorinnen judgment, although the European Court of Human Rights noted as a general consideration that ‘the relevant risks are projected to be lower if the rise in temperature is limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels’ (para. 436), it did not make normative statements suggesting 1.5°C as a quantitative temperature goal. In its findings as to the content of positive obligations under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), it held that mitigation measures to be undertaken by ECHR parties must be aimed at preventing ‘a rise in global average temperature beyond levels capable of producing serious and irreversible adverse effects on human rights’ (para. 546). Admittedly, the Court’s factual finding regarding a +1.5°C warmer world could be taken together with this latter finding to imply that if the 1.5°C is crossed, the conclusion that human rights are seriously and irreversibly affected becomes obvious. Alternatively, the conspicuous absence of any mention of the 1.5°C threshold in the court’s conclusions as to ECHR parties’ positive obligations could be taken to imply that determination of what constitutes an unsafe level falls within each state party’s margin of appreciation as reduced by the consensus reflected in the PA and subsequent COP decisions (on the reduced margin of appreciation, see para 543). Under this line of reasoning, the Court could be seen as having shied away from putting forward its position on the issue of whether a consensus had arisen as to whether the lower of the two temperature goals is primary.

The International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea took a different route its advisory opinion where it was tasked with interpreting obligations under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea related to addressing the deleterious effects of climate change on the marine environment. Regarding Article 194(1), the Tribunal interpreted the content of the duty to prevent, reduce and control marine environmental pollution via greenhouse gas emissions as requiring parties to undertake the necessary emission reduction measures while taking into account the 1.5°C goal in the PA (para. 243). It did so based on the ‘broad agreement within the scientific community that if global temperature increases exceed 1.5°C, severe consequences for the marine environment would ensue’ (para. 241). In other words, the ITLOS did not explicate that it regarded 1.5°C as the ‘primary goal’ under Article 2.1 of the Paris Agreement, although the advisory opinion could be understood as implying so. With the ICJ’s AO, this has now been made clear.

Just a few days before the ICJ gave its AO, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACtHR) gave its advisory opinion on the ‘obligations of States in responding to the climate emergency.’ The IACtHR not only identified an obligation to regulate climate mitigation under the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights and 1988 San Salvador Protocol, but also went into detail as to what action states must take to comply with the same (para. 322 et seq). In this regard, it found there to be a ‘significant international consensus’ on keeping the global average temperature increase from exceeding beyond 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. However, it added that even achieving this goal ‘does not eliminate the risk hovering over millions of people in the region’ (para. 326). As I had argued in a previous blogpost, there is nothing special about 1.5°C and 2°C, since they were merely a product of political compromise. Thus, the fact that the PA mentions these numbers does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that human rights law should be apathetic to the devastating impacts suffered by individuals and groups in a +1.4°C or +1.3°C warmer world. The threshold of warming that puts populations and ecosystems at ‘serious’ risk may vary from region to region. And the Inter-American Court affirmed this view. Still, since it had to specify a standard or otherwise risk leaving scope for ambiguity, the Court held that states must determine a mitigation target, based inter alia, ‘on a temperature increase of no more than 1.5ºC’ (para. 326). Again, the Court did not interpret Article 2.1(a) of the PA itself but rather used the provision, the international consensus and specific findings of the IPCC as to the risks of global warming exceeding the 1.5°C mark to help arrive at ‘a minimum starting point’ for what should inform national mitigation targets (para. 326). What is more, the language used by the Inter-American Court suggests no tolerance even for a limited overshoot above 1.5°C, in contrast to what seems to be suggested by the text of the UAE Consensus (see Decision 1/CMA.5, para 27).

Ultimately, the ECtHR, ITLOS and IACtHR avoided wading into the thicket of constructive ambiguity created by the mention of two temperature goals in Article 2.1(a) of the PA. Of course, they were only tasked with interpreting the ECHR, UNCLOS and ACHR respectively, and referring to the PA as a relevant instrument for interpretive purposes (VCLT, art. 31(3)(c)). Answering an interpretive question pertaining to an external treaty provision could have invited criticisms about the courts overstepping their jurisdiction. Moreover, the three courts in question may have chosen the ‘better safe than sorry’ approach, avoiding getting the interpretation of the PA wrong (before the ICJ could give its AO). Going forward, other courts may rely upon the findings in the AO about Article 2.1(a) PA, as well as its approach of using COP decisions as interpretive tools.

The Content of NDCs

The primacy of ‘national determination’ of mitigation contributions under the Paris Agreement (also called the ‘bottom-up approach’) has led to concerns about the toothlessness of the treaty. Indeed, while Article 4.2 creates a binding obligation on Parties to prepare and communicate NDCs, the committee tasked with reviewing compliance with this obligation cannot comment on their substantive (in)adequacy (Decision 20/CMA.1, Annex, para. 23). Moreover, the wording of Article 4.2 does not directly suggest that these NDCs must be highly ambitious or determined with concern for those most vulnerable to the effects of global warming. However, the ICJ held that ‘[t]he content of the NDCs is equally relevant’ to the formal preparation, communication and maintenance of successive NDCs ‘to determine compliance’ (para. 236).

The Court’s interpretation of Article 4.2 PA was based on other provisions of the Paris Agreement as well as COP Decisions. The following provisions were cited as providing support to the Court’s interpretation: Article 2 (setting out the Parties’ collective goals and manner of implementation of the PA), Article 3 (defining NDCs); Article 4.3 (setting out the normative expectation of progression and highest possible ambition); Article 14.3 (linking the outcomes of the global stocktake with NDCs) and Article 4.8 (linking information to be communicated through NDCs with COP decisions). Additionally, the Court relied on a requirement under the Paris Rulebook (adopted during the 2018 Katowice COP) that Parties must explain how they consider their contribution to be fair and ambitious, and how it contributes to the objectives of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and Paris Agreement as set out in Article 2 of both treaties (Decision 4/CMA.1, Annex I, paras. 6-7). The Court’s reasoning on limited state discretion in determining the content of their NDCs is reminiscent of its reasoning in the Whaling judgment, relating to the question of whether the International Whaling Convention gives parties absolute discretion to determine whether their conduct falls within the ‘purposes of scientific research’ exception (see paras. 56-61). In both instances, the Court balanced the discretion-preserving intent suggested by the wording of the provisions against the treaties’ other-regarding object and purpose. And why is the ICJ’s finding that Parties’ discretion to self-regulate climate mitigation is not absolute important? As Judge Tladi noted in his declaration, this means that the ambitiousness (or sufficiency) of NDCs is ‘open to scrutiny, including judicial scrutiny’ (para. 17, emphasis added).

Concluding Remarks

This blogpost has highlighted two key findings of the ICJ regarding provisions of the PA. Parties must align the mitigation contributions they communicate with the 1.5°C goal as well as other standards under the PA such as progression, highest possible ambition, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC). Given that objectives specified in NDCs need to be implemented with due diligence through domestic measures (PA, art. 4.2 second sentence), these findings will embolden domestic courts in reviewing such measures.

  • Tags
Categories
Adaptation France Private and family life

Urgence Maisons Fissurées Sarthe et al. v. France

Summary:
On 7 April 2025, a group of five individuals litigants and nine civil society organisations presented a request for adaptation measures to the French authorities. Building on GHG emissions reductions litigation, including the ECtHR’s 2024 KlimaSeniorinnen case, this legal action seeks adaptation measures by the French government. The litigants, who are supported by Oxfam France, Notre Affaire à Tous, and Greenpeace France, seek a revision of the third National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change (PNACC 3) and, more broadly, the adoption of any useful measures to ensure or reinforce France’s adaptation to the effects of climate change. The action argues that the State has a general obligation to take adaptation measures, which must be aimed in particular at strengthening adaptive capacities, increasing resilience to climate change and reducing vulnerability to such change (I.A), and by sectoral and cross-cutting obligations (I.B).

This obligation, they argue, flows not only from domestic constitutional law, but is also clarified and reinforced by international and EU law (including the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement) and by the law of the Council of Europe, specifically the European Convention on Human Rights. This instrument, they argue, drawing on the ECtHR’s recently climate case-law and its broader environmental jurisprudence and focusing particularly on the right to respect for private and family life (Art. 8 ECHR) and the right to life (Art. 2 ECHR), obliges the State to put in place an appropriate legislative and regulatory framework to effectively protect human life and health against the risks and consequences of climate change. It also requires the State to take preventive measures of a practical nature, in order to protect citizens whose lives may be at risk, and to mitigate the most serious consequences of climate change. And, finally, it requires the State to ensure the effective application of the framework and of the adaptation measures thus put in place, on the basis of the best available science. Reiterating long-standing case-law of the ECtHR, the litigants argue that the French state has an obligation to take all necessary measures to limit exposure to natural risks resulting from climate change, and to ensure that those affected are informed of the existence of such risks.

The action began as a request addressed to the state, which is a procedural requirement under French law before bringing a case to the Council of State (Conseil d’État). If the state responds in an unsatisfactory way or not at all, the case can be then be taken to the Council of State.

Last updated:
7 July 2025.

  • Tags
Categories
Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation European Convention on Human Rights Fair trial Farming Just transition litigation Paris Agreement Private and family life Right to development and work Right to health Right to life Right to property Separation of powers Standing/admissibility Switzerland Uncategorized Victim status Vulnerability

Uniterre et al. v. Swiss Department of the Environment (Swiss Farmers Case)

Summary:
On 5 March 2024, a group of nine individual Swiss farmers, along with 5 associations representing farming-related interests, submitted a request to the Swiss Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication (DETEC), demanding enhanced governmental action to protect them against the impacts of climate change. Noting increasing summer drought periods that particularly impact their human and constitutional rights and livelihoods, they alleged inadequacies in the existing Swiss climate policy response. In doing so, they submitted that:

As farmers and as associations defending the interests of farmers, the Petitioners and Petitioner Associations are particularly affected by climate change, which infringes their fundamental rights. It affects their harvests and jeopardizes the viability of their farms. Climate disruption has been encouraged by the Authority’s climate inaction. This serious negligence on the part of the Authority now justifies the filing of the present petition (translated from the original French).

Response by DETEC:
On 20 September 2024, DETEC rejected the petitioners’ request, finding that the alleged omissions did not impact the individual petitioners more intensely than other segments of the population, meaning that they lacked an interest worthy of protection, as well as standing. The same result was reached concerning the five petitioning associations (which are Uniterre, Kleinbauern-Vereinigung, Biogenève, Schweizer Bergheimat and Les jardins de cocagne).

The request to DETEC was made pursuant to Art. 25a of the Swiss Federal Administrative Procedure Act (APA), requesting that the government (and more specifically DETEC) should refrain from the alleged unlawful acts impacting the petitioners’ human and constitutional rights and livelihoods. Art. 25a APA provides that:

In other words, Art. 25a APA allows persons whose rights or obligations are impacted by ‘real acts’ of the federal authorities to seek a (subsequently legally contestable) ruling concerning the situation. This approach has been used by climate litigants to contest policy lacunae given that constitutionality review of existing federal legislation is not possible under Swiss Constitutional law. A similar request was the starting point of the landmark KlimaSeniorinnen case that was ultimately decided upon by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2024.

However, and much like the KlimaSeniorinnen association and its members, the present petitioners did not succeed with their request to DETEC. On 20 September 2024, DETEC rejected their request. Uniterre, one of the petitioning associations, argued that DETEC had thereby ignored the ECtHR’s KlimaSeniorinnen judgment, which established that there were access to justice issues for climate applicants in Switzerland by finding a violation of the right to a fair trial (Art. 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)).

DETEC’s reasoning did note the KlimaSeniorinnen judgment. First, it argued that the ECtHR had not considered recent developments in Swiss climate policy, emphasizing that Switzerland had a “long history of climate policy” and had only “barely” missed its 2020 national emissions reductions target. DETEC also noted the domestic findings in the KlimaSeniorinnen case, where Swiss courts had left open the question of whether the applicant association in that case had standing. It did not, in doing so, mention the later ruling of the ECtHR, which found that the conduct of these domestic proceedings and particularly the domestic instances’ treatment of the association’s standing claim had violated fair trial rights. Instead, it relied only on the reasoning of the domestic instances in KlimaSeniorinnen to find that the plaintiffs in the present case did not have a sufficient interest to seek legal protection given that they had failed to demonstrate “how they are more affected by the material acts of which DETEC is accused than the rest of the agricultural world, or other economic sectors that may be impacted by global warming (forestry, fishing, etc.), or other groups of people (children, pregnant women, the elderly, etc.). Nor do the individual Claimants establish for each of them that a particular level and severity of damage is likely to be caused by climate change.” (translated from the original French). DETEC found that “what is at stake in the application is the protection of the community as a whole, and not just of individuals, so that it is akin to a form of actio popularis [meaning] that the individual applicants are pursuing public interests that cannot justify victim status.”

Concerning the standing of associations, DETEC noted that the Swiss federal executive had “rejected the extension of associations’ right of appeal to include climate issues, as set out by the European Court of Human Rights [in KlimaSeniorinnen]”. It also noted that the associations did not pursue the specific goal of defending the fundamental rights of their members or other affected individuals in Switzerland, and that alleging that they did do so would be impossible because the associations in question “were all created before the global awareness of the threat of anthropogenic global warming, and therefore before the adoption of the UNFCCC in 1992.”

Overall, DETEC found that while it could not rule out “that the State’s material acts (actions or omissions) in the field of climate change are in principle capable of producing sufficient effects on the Petitioners to affect the right to protection of private and family life, the right to protection of the home guaranteed by art. 13 para. 1 Cst. as well as the guarantee of property (art. 26 Cst.) and economic freedom (art. 27 Cst.) [and] that Switzerland can, in a global context, have an influence on global warming, the fact remains that it is too small to have a decisive influence in this area, in the sense that there is no direct causal link between the actions or omissions of Switzerland and the effects of global warming, the latter being marked above all by the major industrial powers” (translated from the original French). This meant that “Switzerland’s material actions, while morally and politically relevant, have only a marginal effect on global climate change”.

Case before the Swiss Federal Administrative Tribunal:
On 23 October 2024, the plaintiffs challenged the DETEC decision before the Swiss Federal Administrative Tribunal. They invoked four main grounds for appeal, namely that:

  • By ignoring the ECtHR’s KlimaSeniorinnen ruling, the decision violates federal law, the principle of the separation of powers and the binding force of judgments of the ECtHR (art. 46 ECHR). In particular, the applicants argue that the federal executive has undermined judicial oversight “by arrogating to itself the right to emancipate itself from judicial control”.
  • DETEC’s actions and omissions are contrary to law, as is clear from the KlimaSeniorinnen ruling.
  • The (individual) appellants have standing to bring an action, contesting DETEC’s arguments about the limited impact of Swiss emissions on a global scale and arguing that there is no right to “l’égalité dans l’illégalité”. They emphasized the economic losses and health impacts facing the appellants, with impacts on several fundamental rights, and argued that the refusal to recognize the affectedness of the applicants represented a denial of access to justice and a violation of the right to a fair trial as enshrined in domestic law and Article 6 ECHR.
  • The appellant associations have standing as parties, and DETEC’s refusal to follow the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights (KlimaSeniorinnen) in this regard had violated fair trial and access to justice entitlements enshrined, among others, in Art. 6 ECHR. The ECtHR had not required associations’ statutes to explicitly mention fundamental rights protection. Furthermore, the statutes and aims of the five associations all related to protecting smallholder, sustainable and/or biological farming, with one association (Uniterre) explicitly pursuing the protection of the human rights of peasants and other rural workers as recognized in the 2018 UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP).

The plaintiffs sought orders to the effect that:

  • An expert study should be commissioned concerning the contribution of climate change to worsening drought in Switzerland and reducing agricultural productivity;
  • The government should be ordered to take every measure needed to avoid negative climate impacts and contribution to chronic drought on Swiss territory, abstain from actions causing corresponding impacts, and take every measure capable of reducing or eliminating the impacts of climate change, chronic drought, and the rights violations complained of.
  • A violation of the right to life (Art. 10 of the Swiss Constitution/Art. 2 ECHR), the right to private life (Art. 13 of the Swiss Constitution/Art. 8 ECHR), the right to property (Art. 26 of the Swiss Constitution, Switzerland not having ratified the first additional protocol to the ECHR that enshrines this right), and the right to economic liberty (Art. 27 of the Swiss Constitution) had taken place.
  • A violation of the climate objectives and environmental protection requirements enshrined in domestic legislation had taken place, insufficient measures had been taken to ensure respect for the Paris Agreement, and overall the sum of the action taken with a direct or indirect impact on the climate had been insufficient.

Status of the case:
Pending before the Swiss Federal Administrative Tribunal.

Case documents:
The full text of the initial request as submitted to the Swiss Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication (DETEC) is available below, as made available by Advocat.e.s pour le Climat (in French).

2024-03-05-Plainte-25a-PA-AvoC-caviardeeDownload

The DETEC decision is available below.

2024-09-24-DETEC-a-ANL-Decision-concernant-la-requete-du-5-mars-2024_caviardeeDownload

The full text of the appeal to the Federal Administrative Tribunal is available below.

2024-10-24-Recours-au-TAF_caviarde (1)Download

Further reading:

  • More information on the case is available via SwissInfo.
  • See also the comment by Charlotte E. Blattner, Robert Finger & Karin Ingold in Nature.

Suggested citation:
Swiss Federal Administrative Court, Uniterre et al. v. Swiss Department of the Environment (Swiss Farmers Case), case filed 23 October 2024 (pending).

Last updated:
2 June 2025.

Categories
Adaptation African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights Business responsibility / corporate cases Children and young people Children's rights/best interests Climate activists and human rights defenders Climate-induced displacement Deforestation Disability and health-related inequality Elderly Emissions reductions/mitigation Environmental racism Evidence Extreme poverty Farming Gender / women-led Human dignity Indigenous peoples rights Indigenous peoples' rights Loss & damage Minority rights Non-discrimination Paris Agreement Participation rights Private and family life Prohibition of torture Renewable energy Right to a healthy environment Right to assembly and association Right to development and work Right to education Right to freedom of expression Right to health Right to housing Right to life Right to property Right to subsistence/food Rights of nature Sea-level rise Self-determination Standing/admissibility Victim status Vulnerability

African Court on Human and People’s Rights Climate Advisory Opinion

Summary:
On 2 May 2025, a request for an advisory opinion on climate change was submitted to the African Court on Human and People’s Rights. The request was submitted by the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU), in collaboration with the African Climate Platform, and other African Civil society Organizations including the Environmental Lawyers Collective for Africa, Natural Justice and resilient40, and seeks clarification of States’ obligations in the context of climate change.

Submitted under article 4 of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the establishment of an African Court on Human and People’s Rights and Rule 82(1) of the Rules of the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights, the request submits that “[a]cross the continent, Africans are suffering the consequences of climate change, whether from rising temperatures, unrelenting droughts, catastrophic floods, vanishing biodiversity, or threats to livelihoods. Climate change in Africa has had prior, current and will have future consequences that impact the enjoyment of numerous rights.”

The request sets out impacts, disaggregating them region-by-region and in terms of the groups of people most affected by climate change (mentioning women and girls, children, the elderly, Indigenous peoples, and environmental human rights defenders in particular).

The request then goes on to discuss several issues of law, beginning with issues of admissibility and jurisdiction and then relying on a wide range of rights and instruments, namely:

  • a) the Constitutive Act of the African Union
  • b) the African Charter for Human and Peoples Rights (‘Banjul Charter’), especially articles 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 60 and 61
  • c) African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention)
  • d) Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol)
  • e) The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
  • f) The Revised African Convention on Conservation of Nature
  • g) Any other Relevant Instrument.

In doing so, PALU invites the Court to consider international climate change law, including the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement as well as the UN Conventions on Combatting Desertification and on Biological Diversity.

Rights invoked in more detail:
PALU submits that “a rights-based climate approach is needed to address the challenges posed by climate change” and that the human rights framework “provides a robust legal framework upon which the Court may rely to define States’ responsibilities and duties in the context of climate change […] because the Charter clearly provides for collective rights and the explicit protection of the right to a healthy environment.” PALU accordingly invites the Court to consider the following provisions of the Banjul Charter:

  • Articles 2 and 3 (equality and non-discrimination)
  • Article 4 (right to life and inviolability of the human person)
  • Article 5 (right to respect for dignity and prohibition of all forms of exploitation and degradation, including slavery and torture)
  • Article 8 (freedom of conscience and religion)
  • Article 9 (freedom of information and opinion)
  • Article 10 (freedom of association)
  • Article 11 (freedom of assembly)
  • Article 12 (freedom of movement, residence and asylum; prohibition of mass expulsion)
  • Article 14 (right to property)
  • Article 16 (right to health)
  • Article 17 (right to education)
  • Article 18 (protection of the family, prohibition of age and gender discrimination)
  • Article 19 (equality of peoples, prohibition of domination)
  • Article 20 (right of peoples to existence and self-determination)
  • Article 21 (right of peoples to freely dispose of their wealth and natural resources)
  • Article 22 (right of peoples to their economic, social and cultural development)
  • Article 23 (right of peoples to national and international peace and security)
  • Article 24 (right of all peoples to a general satisfactory environment favorable to their development)
  • The request also discusses the implied rights to food and shelter.

Issues for determination:
PALU submits the following issues for determination by the Court (paraphrased):

(a) Whether the Court can be seized with the question of obligations concerning climate change under the Banjul Charter and other relevant instruments?

(b) Whether the Court can interpret and lay down applicable custom and treaty law regarding States’ obligations and duties in the context of climate change?

If these questions are resolved in the affirmative, the Court is invited to further determine:

(a) What, if any, are States’ human and peoples’ rights obligations to protect and safeguard the rights of individuals and peoples of the past (ancestral rights), and present and future generations?

(b) Whether States have positive obligations to protect vulnerable populations including environmental human rights defenders, indigenous communities, women, children, youth, future generations, the current generation, past generations, the elderly and people with disabilities from the impact of climate change in line with the relevant treaties?

(c) What human rights obligations do States have to facilitate a just, transparent, equitable and accountable transition in the context of climate change in Africa?

(d) What are the obligations of African States in implementing adaptation, resilience and mitigation measures in response to climate change?

(e) What, if any, are applicable human rights obligations of States to compensate for loss, damage and reparations?

(f) What responsibilities, if any, do African States have in relation to third parties, including international monopolies, multinational corporations and non-state actors operating on the continent, to ensure that international and regional treaties and laws on climate change are respected, protected, promoted and implemented?

(g) What, if any, is the nature of the obligations on African States to cooperate with other states especially historical emitters to limit global warming to below the 1.5°C threshold, to avert an existential climate crisis for present and future generations on the continent?

Further reading:
For more information on the advisory opinion request, see this post by Yusra Suedi.

Suggested citation:
African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Request for an advisory opinion on the human rights obligations of African states in addressing the climate crisis, filed 2 May 2025 (pending).

Last updated:
23 May 2025

Categories
Biodiversity Business responsibility / corporate cases Chile Domestic court Loss & damage Paris Agreement Right to a healthy environment Uncategorized

State Defense Council vs. Quiborax S.A.

Summary:
On 2 July 2024, a complaint was filed by the public prosecutor of Antofagasta, representing the State of Chile, against Quiborax S.A., a limited liability company in the mining, agrochemical and energy sectors that produces and exports boric acid. The case concerns ulexite mining in the surface salt deposits in the Salar de Surire, located in the commune of Putre, Region of Arica and Parinacota (the ‘Salar’), and related environmental damage. This includes permanent damage to the Salar itself, alterations of runoff and flooding patterns, a loss of supporting, regulating and cultural ecosystem services, serious habitat alterations and losses, and biodiversity and environmental impacts. This resulted in continuous, cumulative, permanent and irreparable environmental damage to an iconic national and international protected area. The State sought compensation, mitigation and risk reduction measures. In doing so, it relied on Section 19 Nº 8 of the Chilean Constitution, which recognizes the right to live in an environment free of pollution, mandating the State to ensure that this right ‘is not affected and to protect the preservation of nature’, while its subsection 2° confers power to the legislator to ‘establish specific restrictions to the exercise of certain rights or freedoms to protect the environment’.

In doing so, the State cited principles of conservation and sustainable development, and Chile’s international obligations including the Convention for the Protection of the Flora, Fauna and Natural Scenic Beauty of the countries of the Americas (Washington Convention); the Convention on Biological Diversity; the Convention on Biological Diversity; the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (RAMSAR Convention); the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Fauna; the Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage; the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Fauna; and the Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage, the UNFCCC, and the Paris Agreement as well as Chile’s Nationally Determined Contribution under that framework.

The State also invoked:

the multiplier effect of climate change and the need to consider this liability for environmental damage, as it constitutes an unavoidable context that must be taken into account, given its capacity to enhance and reinforce the short, medium and long term effects of impairments, deterioration or losses inflicted on environmental components. In this sense, climate change multiplies the effect of impairments, deterioration or losses affecting the regulation or support services provided by abiotic components, such as soil or water or ecosystems themselves, especially threatening unique or singular ecosystems, valuable for their expression of biodiversity. This is precisely what the sixth report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (from now on ‘the IPCC’) on the physical basis of climate change, published in August 2021, has revealed in relation to the environment and sustainable development. It is therefore urgent, on the one hand, to determine the exact influence of climate change on this degraded ecosystem as the amount of rainwater from the summer rains increases, and, on the other hand, to strive to conserve a climatic refuge such as Surire, which sustains the biodiversity not only of the region and the country, but also of the entire world.

Status of the case:
Pending

Last updated:
12 February 2025

Categories
Children and young people Children's rights/best interests Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation Estonia Fossil fuel extraction Gender / women-led Paris Agreement Right to a healthy environment

Fridays for Future Estonia vs. Environmental Board

Summary:
On 25 June 2024, Fridays for Future Estonia, a youth environmental movement, announced that it had filed two cases against the continued operation of a state-owned fossil fuel (shale oil) plant. The Estonian Environmental Board had granted a state-owned company, Enefit Power, a permit to operate until 2035. Fridays for Future Estonia filed two complaints to challenge the permit: one was brought by MTÜ Loodusvõlu, an NGO established in 2019 by Fridays for Future Estonia with the goal of managing the financial side of the movement, and the other by a young activist within the movement named Elo-Lee Maran.

The case follows on a separate set of proceedings concerning a 2020 decision to award Enefit Power’s parent company 125 million Euros to construct a shale oil plant. MTÜ Loodusvõlu filed a lawsuit in the Tartu Administrative Court to revoke the construction permit, which was upheld in October 2023 by the Supreme Court, which annulled the construction permit. Two months later, the municipality of Narva-Jõesuu issued a new construction permit for the plant.

According to Fridays for Future, Elo-Lee Maran’s case represents the first climate case brought by an individual in Estonia. The case argues that exacerbating climate change is a threat to human rights, including the rights of children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. No only does the plant’s operation hinder the achievement of the targets set out in the Paris Agreement and the National Energy and Climate Plan. It also, so it is alleged, violates Elo-Lee Maran’s right to a healthy environment under domestic and international law. Depleting Estonia’s share of the ever-smaller carbon budget will require Estonia to limit people’s basic freedoms intensely in the future, which is not in the best interests of a child.

The case will be heard by the Tallinn Administrative Court in December 2024.

More information:
For more information, see this overview from Fridays for Future.

Last updated:
29 November 2024

Categories
Adaptation Disability and health-related inequality Domestic court Elderly Emissions reductions/mitigation Human dignity Paris Agreement Right to health Right to housing Right to life Right to subsistence/food South Korea Vulnerability

Senior Citizens v. Korea

Summary:
In June 2024, a group of 123 older South Korean citizens brought suit against their government before South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission, arguing that the government’s greenhouse gas mitigation plans had violated their human dignity and their right to life. Their case concerns both mitigation and adaptation action. In terms of mitigation, they sought enhancement of the country’s 2030 national greenhouse gas reduction targets and an ambitious next nationally determined contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement. In terms of adaptation, they sought a risk assessment of impacts on human rights, including the rights to life, food, health, and housing, and emphasized the State’s fundamental obligation to protect these rights. This assessment should entail, they argued, “a factual survey and epidemiological investigation into the risks the climate crisis poses to the human rights of vulnerable social groups, including older persons”, and lead to more ambitious adaptation measures.

Petition:
The full text of the petition as filed can be found below.

Senior_Citizens_v_Korea_petitionDownload

Status of case:
Pending before South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission

Last updated:
29 November 2024

Categories
Emissions reductions/mitigation EU/European Court of Justice Paris Agreement Right to a healthy environment Right to health

CAN Europe and Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) v. European Commission

Summary:

CAN Europe and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) have taken legal action against the European Commission before the General Court of the EU, challenging its greenhouse gas emissions allocations under the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR), which covers sectors like buildings, agriculture, waste, transport, and small industry, responsible for about 57% of the EU’s total emissions. The NGOs argue that the Commission’s current climate goals, including the Annual Emissions Allocations (AEAs) for Member States, are insufficient to meet international climate commitments and protect human rights.

In particular, the NGOs argue that the AEAs under the revised 2030 target, set following the ‘Fit for 55’ legislative package, do not sufficiently limit emissions to stay within the 1.5°C global warming target agreed upon in the Paris Agreement. They claim that the Commission failed to conduct proper assessments of global emissions reductions, the EU’s fair share of those reductions, and the impacts of climate change on human rights. The NGOs are pushing for the AEAs to be revised to a more ambitious reduction target of at least 65% by 2030.

Claim:

CAN Europe and GLAN are challenging the European Commission’s decision to set emissions targets for Member States that they deem inadequate to protect fundamental human rights and comply with environmental law. They argue that the Commission’s current Annual Emissions Allocations (AEAs), which allow a 55% reduction in emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, are insufficient. The NGOs claim that the Commission failed to make necessary assessments about the EU’s fair share of global reductions, the feasibility of domestic emissions reductions, and the impacts of climate change on human rights. They demand the Commission to revise the AEAs and increase the EU’s overall 2030 climate target to a 65% reduction in emissions.

Latest Developments and Significance:

In August 2024, CAN Europe and GLAN submitted their final legal arguments to the General Court, marking a significant step in the case. The European Commission is expected to submit its final observations in September 2024. This case follows the Commission’s rejection of the NGOs’ internal review request in December 2023, which prompted the legal action in February 2024. The case has been given priority by the Court due to its urgency.

The case is significant because it directly challenges the EU’s current climate policies, specifically the adequacy of the ‘Fit for 55’ legislative package in meeting global climate goals. A favorable ruling for the NGOs could force the European Commission to revise its emissions targets and adopt more stringent measures to prevent climate change, potentially setting a new precedent for environmental law in Europe. It could also align EU climate action more closely with fundamental human rights and science-based climate targets, as called for by the Paris Agreement.

This case follows the landmark KlimaSeniorinnen ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, which established the requirement for States to adopt science-based emissions targets. If the EU Court takes a similar stance, this case could reshape the legal landscape for climate action within the EU, pushing for more aggressive and immediate measures to combat climate change.

Status of the case:

The case is currently pending before the General Court of European Union.

Links:

The related documents are accessible here, here, and here.

Suggested case citation: CAN Europe and Global Legal Action Network v. European Commission (General Court of the European Union, pending).

Last updated:

13 October 2024.

Categories
Children and young people Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation Paris Agreement Right to culture Right to development and work Right to health Right to housing Right to life Right to property

Environmental Rights Foundation and others v. Taiwan  

Summary:
On 30 January 2024, Taiwanese environmental groups, along with children and other individual plaintiffs, petitioned the Taiwanese Constitutional Court to demand intergenerational climate justice from the government. Their case challenges the 2023 Climate Change Response Act (氣候變遷因應法) because it does not include short and medium-term national periodic regulatory goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In doing so, the plaintiffs contest the government’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 23-25% compared to 2005 levels, which they considered insufficiently ambitious.

The case was brought by an NGO, the Environmental Rights Foundation, along with individuals who allege that they are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (including because of their livelihoods related to farming and fishing, by virtue of their Indigenous heritage and culture, or because they are children).  

The plaintiffs argue that the current regulation does not adequately safeguard their right to life, right to bodily integrity and health, right to survival, right to housing, right to work, property rights and cultural rights. They argue that the legislature has forsaken its obligation to ensure an adequate regulatory framework including a cross-generational allocation of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The 23-25% reductions target does not allow Taiwan to reach net zero by 2050 and is insufficiently protective of fundamental rights. The plaintiffs argue that, under current measures, Taiwan will exhaust its remaining carbon budget for a 1.5°C and 1.7°C world by 2030. In addition, the current measures do not set sufficient interim yearly goals because it lacks goals for the period from 2026 to 2030.

Last updated:
4 October 2024