Category: Private and family life

Categories
Adaptation Climate-induced displacement Disability and health-related inequality European Convention on Human Rights European Court of Human Rights Imminent risk Loss & damage Non-discrimination Paris Agreement Participation rights Private and family life Right to life Right to property Sea-level rise The United Kingdom

Friends of the Earth and Others v. the United Kingdom

Summary:
In July 2025, an application concerning adaptation obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights was filed with the European Court of Human Rights against the United Kingdom. The application builds on domestic proceedings in the reportedly first-ever adaptation case in the United Kingdom, which was brought against the government before the UK’s High Court of Justice. The plaintiffs in this case included Kevin Jordan, a homeowner from Norfolk (UK), who alleged that his home was acutely threatened by coastal erosion, with the road leading up to it having already collapsed into the sea. On 30 November 2023, he was told to leave his home by the local authorities, and it was home was demolished seven days later. Mr Jordan brought his case together with the NGO ‘Friends of the Earth’ and disability rights activist Doug Paulley, a care home resident who alleged that his health conditions were being exacerbated by climate-aggravated heatwaves. Mr Paulley is a wheelchair user who has a number of long-term health conditions. Together, the plaintiffs challenged the UK’s National Adaptation Programme (NAP).

Domestic proceedings:
The UK’s domestic law requires the production of new NAP every five years, and the most recent version — NAP3 — was published in July 2023. The claimants argued that NAP3 is deficient for the following reasons:

  1. Failure to set sufficiently specific objectives;
  2. Failure to conduct and publish information on the assessment of the risks involved in implementing NAP3;
  3. Failure to consider the unequal impacts of NAP3 on protected groups (on the grounds of age, race and disability); and
  4. Violation of Articles 2, 8, 14 and Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the rights to life, respect for private and family life, non-discrimination and property, respectively), as enshrined in the Human Rights Act 1998.

In a judgment issued on 25 October 2024, the High Court of Justice for England and Wales rejected the applicants’ claims. Justice Chamberlain, in his judgment, found that there had been no error of law in this case. His ruling extensively considered the 2024 Verein KlimaSeniorinnen judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, but found that “[u]nlike in the field of mitigation, and subject to the arguments about the effect of the ECHR as interpreted in [Verein KlimaSeniorinnen] (…), there is no internationally binding quantified standard governing how States must adapt to climate change. It would be very difficult to devise any such standard because the risks of climate change differ widely from state to state (and indeed within states). In some places, the main risk may be from flooding, in other places extreme heat or drought. Elsewhere, there may be a combination of risks, which all have to be addressed but some of which are more urgent than others. Moreover, the profile of risks, and the priorities attached to addressing them, may change over time” (para. 92 of the High Court ruling).

Assessing the Verein KlimaSeniorinnen judgment overall, Judge Chamberlain found that while this judgment “represents a significant development of the case law in relation to climate change, not only as regards the standing of associations to bring claims before the Strasbourg Court, but also as regards the scope and extent of the positive obligations of the State and the margin of appreciation to be accorded when assessing whether those obligations have been discharged”, “the significance of the judgment for the UK’s climate change framework should not be overstated.” The Judge noted that KlimaSeniorinnen focused heavily on lacunae in domestic legislation and the targets set out in the Paris Agreement, whereas the law of the United Kingdom does not feature similar lacunae in mitigation target-setting.

Lawyers for the government in this case had sought to dismiss the findings of the ECtHR, as made in para. 552 of KlimaSeniorinnen, as an obiter dictum. This paragraph of the Strasbourg Court’s judgment reads as follows:

Furthermore, effective protection of the rights of individuals from serious adverse effects on their life, health, well-being and quality of life requires that the above-noted mitigation measures be supplemented by adaptation measures aimed at alleviating the most severe or imminent consequences of climate change, taking into account any relevant particular needs for protection. Such adaptation measures must be put in place and effectively applied in accordance with the best available evidence (…) and consistent with the general structure of the State’s positive obligations in this context (…).

Judge Chamberlain disagreed with the government as concerns the nature of this finding, noting the dangers of applying “common law concepts [the idea of obiter dicta] to the judgment of a court most of whose members come from different legal traditions.” Still, Judge Chamberlain noted that the Strasbourg Court’s findings were of a general nature (para. 101). He found that KlimaSeniorinnen “appears to indicate that the positive obligation imposed by Articles 2 and 8 [ECHR] extends to adopting and effectively implementing ‘adaptation measures aimed at alleviating the most severe or imminent consequences of climate change, taking into account any relevant particular needs for protection’”, stemming from the State’s underlying regulatory obligation. He notes that “[w]hat that means in the context of adaptation measures, however, is far from clear” (para. 103), given that adaptation measures were not central to the KlimaSeniorinnen case, and that the international legal framework in this regard is less well-developed than for mitigation measures. He went on to anticipate future rulings from the ECtHR, considering it

(…) likely that, if the Strasbourg Court had in a future case to apply the reasoning in [Verein KlimaSeniorinnen] to the adaptation context, it would say that:
(a) the narrow margin of appreciation in relation to the mitigation aims was justified by reference to the internationally agreed objective of carbon neutrality by 2050 and the impact of one State’s default on other States;
(b) neither of these features applies in the field of adaptation; and
(c) accordingly, in the field of adaptation, States are to be accorded a wide margin of appreciation in setting the relevant objectives and a wider margin still in setting out the proposals and policies for meeting them (by analogy with the margin accorded to the State in setting the means for achieving the mitigation objectives).

Accordingly, he found that the current adaptation framework in the United Kingdom appears to “fall comfortably within the UK’s margin of appreciation under Articles 2 and 8 ECHR” and is not “contrary to any clear and consistent line of authority from the Strasbourg Court”. On this basis, he found that there was neither an error of law nor an incompatibility with human rights law evident in this case.

Application to the European Court of Human Rights:
In July 2025, Friends of the Earth announced that the case had been filed as an application before the European Court of Human Rights. In their application, they alleged violations of their human rights by the UK’s failure to put in place the necessary adaptation measures to protect them (and, for Friends of the Earth, the people it represents) from the risks and impacts of climate change. Invoking their rights under Articles 2 and 8 ECHR, as well as Article 1 of Protocol 1 (read with Article 14), they argue that their human rights are engaged by the effects of climate-change, including heatwaves (Mr Paulley) and coastal erosion (Mr Jordan). They draw on findings from the UK’s independent advisory body on climate change, the Climate Change
Committee (‘the CCC), which has stated that the UK is already experiencing a range of significant adverse impacts from climate change, including heatwaves and coastal erosion.

Under Articles 2 and 8 ECHR
Noting that coastal erosion has been accelerated by climate change, they noted that Mr Jordan had in the meantime lost his home to coastal erosion, and that afterwards he was offered little support, whether financial or otherwise. That, along with the lack of meaningful, long-term and effective planning to support coastal communities, left him particularly affected by coastal erosion and associated risks. Mr. Paulley, in the meantime, was room-bound during heatwaves, given the high temperatures that affect the common areas of his care home. This, they argued, severely impacted his physical and mental health.

The applicants drew on studies that document excess deaths during heat waves in the UK, including especially during the summer 2022 heat wave. They drew also on the adaptation-related obligations under the Paris Agreement, as well as case-law from other international adjudicators (Billy) and the ECtHR’s own case-law in cases concerning climate change and other environmental pollution.

They argued that the UK had failed to act with due diligence to protect the applicants. The government’s actions in this regard violated its positive obligations under the right to life in Article 2 (as well as Article 8 ECHR) ECHR given its failure to put in place and effectively apply in practice adaptation measures that are in accordance with the best available evidence and consistent with the general structure of the State’s positive obligations in this context. In particular, they argued that the UK lacked an effective legal framework for ECHR-compliant climate adaptation, and that the NAP3 itself does not effectively protect Convention rights, because it lacked transparency and procedural safeguards, was developed behind closed doors and did not adequately protect vulnerable individuals.

Under Article 1, Protocol 1 ECHR
The applicants alleged that the UK had failed to put in place effective measures to protect Mr Jordan’s property rights. NAP3 failed to set out measures to either ensure that Mr Jordan’s property was not lost to the sea or that, once his home was demolished as a result of managed realignment, he was provided with proportionate compensation, access to reinsurance, or the like. There was no evidence that the government had even considered those things.

Article 14 ECHR, read with Articles 2 and 8
Both individual applicants alleged that they are extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to their intersecting and compounding vulnerabilities: e.g., their specific conditions (residing in a care home, or a town subject to coastal erosion and resulting managed realignment, various health conditions, limited mobility and mental health issues.

Redacted application to the ECtHR:
The applicants’ (redacted) application to the ECtHR is available for download below.

2025-07-01 – ECtHR Submissions_Redacted_0Download

Suggested citation:
Friends of the Earth and Others v. the United Kingdom, application before the ECtHR of 1 July 2025 (pending).

Last updated:
27 July 2026.

Categories
2025 Adaptation Belgium Class action Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation European Convention on Human Rights Just transition litigation Paris Agreement Private and family life Right to life Standing/admissibility Victim status

We Are Nature.Brussels and others v. Brussels-Capital Region

Summary:
In June 2023, an adaptation case was filed in Belgium against the Brussels-Capital Region (RBC) before the Francophone Court of First Instance of Brussels. The case was brought by 1330 individuals and by the NGO We Are Nature.Brussels, a Brussels-based organisation dedicated to protecting biodiversity, natural areas, undeveloped areas, abandoned sites, and living soils within the RBC. The plaintiffs emphasized the right to life in Article 2 ECHR and the right to respect for private and family life in Article 8 ECHR to argue that the region’s government had violated its duty of care to adapt to climate change by failing to adapt to the risks of flooding or urban heat islands. On 29 October 2025, Judge Sabine Malengreau for the Court of First Instance found that the RBC had indeed violated its legal obligations under domestic law, ordering the suspension of further urbanization and soil sealing projects on undeveloped sites larger than 0,5 hectares. Although the case is subject to appeal, it is provisionally enforceable.

The first instance court’s reasoning in more depth:
On the admissibility of the case, the court considered the reasoning of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in KlimaSeniorinnen as concerns victim status and standing. The RBC’s government had invoked this judgment to argue that, like in the ECtHR proceedings, the individual applicants in the present case also lacked victim status because they had failed to demonstrate that they were personally and directly affected by the violations they alleged. The court rejected this argument. It held that this reasoning from the ECtHR was not relevant to the case before it given that the ECtHR determines victim status based on the autonomous conception of that term under Article 34 ECHR, whereas the conditions for liability under Belgian law “may validly differ from the conditions for the admissibility of an application filed within the framework of a system of remedies and procedures designed to ensure the ECtHR’s oversight of compliance with the ECHR.” It went on to declare the claims by the individual plaintiffs, all residents of Brussels, admissible.

In her reasoning, which noted the judgment in Belgium’s Klimaatzaak mitigation case, Judge Malengreau established a violation of the RBC’s duty of care because of its failure to act with the prudence and diligence required by Article 1382 of the former Belgian Civil Code. Previously, in the Klimaatzaak, two successive instances of the Belgian judiciary had already established that the RBC’s climate policy violated Articles 2 and 8 ECHR given that it had failed to take appropriate and reasonable measures to do its part in meeting the minimum requirements for reducing GHG emissions between 2013 and 2020.

Building on this reasoning, as well as obligations under the Paris Agreement and under EU law, the court noted (own translation from the original French):

  • RBC’s failure resulting from its inadequate goals and results in terms of mitigating GHG emissions;
  • the lack of an updated estimate of the capacity of natural sinks to absorb GHG emissions at the regional level;
  • the steady increase in urbanization and soil sealing;
  • the inadequacy of current regulatory tools;
  • and this, in a context where, for more than fifteen years, the RBC was aware of the certain risk of climate change that is dangerous to the region’s population and of the urgency of preventing the inevitable harmful effects of this climate change.

The court went on to find that:

Indeed, the aforementioned findings do not support the conclusion that RBC took the necessary measures to maintain and strengthen the capacity of natural sinks to absorb GHG emissions, even though it knew, as early as 2017, that, as things stood, the absorption capacity was largely insufficient relative to direct GHG emissions and that it was essential to strengthen natural sinks both to mitigate climate change and to adapt to its adverse effects.

In terms of establishing damage, the court held that:

None of the individual plaintiffs is immune to the negative effects (heat waves, droughts, floods, etc.) of climate change, which, in one way or another, is manifesting itself throughout the Brussels region.

It is also established that, regardless of efforts to mitigate the causes of global warming, its harmful effects will continue to multiply and worsen in the short and medium term.

To remedy this violation, the plaintiffs sought a moratorium on development and soil sealing on undeveloped sites larger than 0.5 ha.
The court noted that this would have the effect of regulating the use of land belonging to public and private actors, which would constitute an interference with property rights as guaranteed by Article 16 of the Belgian Constitution and Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1 to the ECHR. It was accordingly not within the court’s authority to limit the exercise of the right to property by a broad and undefined range of public or private entities that were not parties to this case. Specific measures were accordingly left to the discretion of the RBC, which was ordered to take the necessary measures to suspend development and soil sealing of undeveloped sites and parcels of land larger than 0.5 ha within its jurisdiction, until the adoption of the PRAS amendment, or (as a back-up deadline) 31 December 2026.

The judgment:
The full text of the first-instance judgment (in the original French) is available below.

20251029-jugement-WAN-RBC-sans-annexesDownload

More information:
Additional information on the case, including press releases, are available here.

Suggested citation:
Francophone Court of First Instance of Brussels, We Are Nature.Brussels and others v. Brussels-Capital Region, case nr. 24/885/A, judgment of 29 October 2025.

Last updated:
23 July 2026.

Categories
Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation European Convention on Human Rights France Paris Agreement Private and family life

Notre Affaire à Tous v. France (“Fair Shares Trial”)

Summary:
On 4 December 2025, the French NGO Notre Affaire à Tous filed a climate case against the French government, alleging that it was failing to do its “fair share” to mitigate climate change. Drawing on the 2024 KlimaSeniorinnen judgment of the European Court of Human Rights and the 2025 climate advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, the case seeks clarification from the Council of State on France’s equitable contribution to limiting climate change to 1.5°C in light of its historical responsibility and financial capabilities, and a finding that current French climate mitigation plans are insufficient. The case builds on previous litigation by the NGO against France and argues, as concerns human rights, that:

the national court is required to apply Article 8 of the ECHR, concerning the right to respect for private and family life, as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights, and to set aside any legislative provisions that would be contrary to the Convention (own translation).

The applicants also invoke the State’s international law obligation to exercise due diligence (as clarified by the ICJ climate advisory opinion) and argue that France’s ‘fair share’ of mitigation action should be calculated according to principles of equity among nations, factoring in its historical emissions (since 1990); its imported emissions and net domestic emissions; and its level of economic development in line with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities as enshrined in the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC. This analysis, they argue:

shows that France is far below its equitable contribution to combating climate change, given its real impact. France has already consumed nearly all of its “fair share” of the global carbon budget compatible with the 1.5°C objective.

Case documents:
The petition (in French) and a press release are available for download below.

Press-Release-Fair-Share-Trial-12.2025Download
Requete-PPJ-NAATDownload

Suggested citation:
French Conseil d’État, Notre Affaire à Tous v. France (“Fair Shares Trial”), filed 4 December 2025 (pending).

Last updated:
24 June 2026.

Categories
Access to a remedy Climate activists and human rights defenders Emissions reductions/mitigation European Convention on Human Rights European Court of Human Rights Fossil fuel extraction Indigenous peoples rights Indigenous peoples' rights Non-discrimination Paris Agreement Private and family life Right to health Right to life Russian Federation

Danilov et al. v. Russia (Russian Climate Case)

Summary:
In August 2023, a group of individuals and NGOs filed a climate application against Russia before the European Court of Human Rights. The applicants, made up of two NGOs (Ecodefense and Moscow Helsinki Group) and 18 individuals (including Indigenous persons and human‑rights defenders) challenges Russia’s climate policies and (in)actions for violating their human rights, citing Russia’s high per capita greenhouse gas emissions and particularly its high methane emissions. They argue that:

Russia is ranked as responsible for the third largest cumulative emissions since the beginning of the industrial era. Currently, it is the fourth largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world and the second biggest source of global energy-related methane emissions. As of 2021, it was the world’s largest exporter of fossil gas, the second largest exporter of oil, the third largest coal exporter and the largest gas flaring nation. It has the world’s second-largest coal reserves, and its 2020 Energy Strategy plans an increase in domestic coal production annually up to 2035. Russia has no quantifiable methane reduction plans and did not sign up to the COP26 global methane pledge. These factors materially affect global and Arctic climate risk.

As well as that:

Expert evidence shows Russia’s published policy from 2020 and 2021 allows emissions to continue rising to 2030 and only minimally decline thereafter — far above levels compatible with protecting human life and health or with Paris Agreement temperature targets. The Climate Action Tracker assesses Russia’s climate action as ‘critically insufficient’. The case argues that these policies breach constitutional and international human‑rights standards and Russia’s climate obligations. Most recently, Russia has issued a new emissions decree providing for a weaker 2035 emissions target. The new target is about 22% greater than Russia’s reported 2021 emissions.

After being rejected by the domestic courts, the applicants brought their case to the ECtHR, describing it as “the first and only climate challenge by Russian citizens to Russia’s policies at Strasbourg. Given Russia’s withdrawal/expulsion from the Council of Europe and the repressive context for human rights and environmental defenders, this is likely the last such case within a legally binding international forum during the critical climate mitigation window.” In Strasbourg, the applicants argue that the case remains in the Court’s temporal jurisdiction and invoke the rights to life, health, home and family life (Articles 2 and 8 ECHR), as well as the right to an effective remedy (Article 13 ECHR) and that prohibition of discrimination in relation to youth applicants and Indigenous applicants (Article 14 taken in conjunction with Articles 2 and 8 ECHR). They also argue that the Russian Government has sought to undermine the case, thereby interfering with their right to bring the case, in violation of Article 34 ECHR. Notably, it is reported that since the case began, both applicant NGO’s have been dissolved by the Russian courts, one applicant had his citizenship and that of family revoked and individual applicants and their lawyer have been designated ‘Foreign Agents’ under Russia’s Foreign Agent Law.

Further reading:
For a discussion of the case, see Joanna Evans, ‘The Russian Climate Case: A Crucial Test for the European Court of Human Rights’, Völkerrechtsblog, 15 December 2025, https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/the-russian-climate-case/.

More information on the case is provided by the applicants here.

Suggested citation:
ECtHR, Danilov et al. v. Russia, app. no. 9296/24, filed in August 2023.

Last updated:
24 June 2026.

Categories
2026 Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation Finland Private and family life Right to life

Greenpeace Finland & the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation v. Government of Finland

Summary:

Greenpeace Finland and Finnish Association for Nature Conservation have sought judicial review by the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court of the government’s plans for implementation of climate targets under the 2022 Climate Act. These plans are detailed in the Government Report on the National Energy and Climate Strategy and Medium-Term Climate Plan, both of which were issued in December 2025. The plaintiffs argue that the measures envisaged by the government are insufficient to achieve the targets set out in the Climate Act, and alternative pathways towards the achievement of the targets have not been assessed, and thus the government is in breach of its statutory duty.    

The plaintiffs have approached the highest administrative court in Finland directly (rather than via the appellate route), arguing that the impugned government decisions implicate civil rights and obligations as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights in the Verein KlimaSeniorinnen & Others v. Switzerland judgment.

Last updated:

17 March 2026.

Links:

For the press release by the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, click here.

Categories
Australia Disability and health-related inequality Emissions reductions/mitigation Evidence Fossil fuel extraction Human Rights Committee Indigenous peoples rights Indigenous peoples' rights Paris Agreement Private and family life Right to culture Right to life

Poelina et al. v. Australia

Summary:
On 20 June 2026, a communication against Australia was filed with the UN Human Rights Committee. The authors of the communication, who live in five Australian states, argue that Australia’s continued licensing of fossil fuel projects violates their rights under several provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), namely the right to life (Article 6 ICCPR), the right to privacy, family, and home life (Article 17), and the right to culture (Article 27). Drawing on the International Court of Justice’s 2025 climate advisory opinion, as well as the ECtHR’s 2024 KlimaSeniorinnen judgment and the IACtHR’s 2025 climate advisory opinion, they submit that they have experienced several rights-impacting events, all of which were “made substantially more likely and severe by anthropogenic climate change, to which Australia materially contributes through its production of fossil fuels for export.” This includes extreme heat, bushfires or wildfires, flooding, and toxic algal blooms. The authors build their claims on past extreme events that impacted several authors’ Aboriginal culture and lands, which have been flooded and face toxic algal blooms destroying traditional food sources and ways of life. Two authors also risked their lives fighting the 2019-2020 bushfires, with one losing his home to the flames and another volunteering as a firefighter. Other authors live with disabilities or health conditions that place them particularly at risk from heat waves or floods.

Relying on scientific reports and expert evidence (especially the Anderson and Calverley report), the authors submit that current levels of GHG emissions mean that “there are less than two years remaining to ensure warming is limited to 1.5°C”. They also argue against models that tolerate overshooting 1.5°C, arguing that States cannot rely on unproven carbon removal technologies to return below that level of warming and that technologies to remove or sequester carbon, notably carbon, capture, and storage (CCS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR), remain unproven and ineffective.

The core of the communication is the argument that Australia has failed the “stringent due diligence” standard, which the ICJ has interpreted as requiring states to “use all means at their disposal” to prevent significant harm to the climate system by aligning their actions with a global pathway that limits warming to 1.5°C. In an illustrative list of internationally wrongful acts, the ICJ listed “fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies” (para 427). Based on this finding, the communication argues that Australia’s ongoing conduct relating to fossil fuel exploration, production and subsidies violates the authors’ ICCPR rights.

The authors note that Australia is “one of the world’s leading historical and current producers of fossil fuels for export” (as of 2024, the second largest global exporter of coal, and the third largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, with ca. 80% of Australia’s total fossil fuel CO2 footprint coming from fossil fuel exports as of 2022). Despite its international obligations to act on climate change, the authors submit, the Australian government’s policy “remains to maximise fossil fuel exports, and Australia continues to subsidise and approve fossil fuel projects that will export fossil fuels for decades to come, in some cases into the 2070s.”

To make this argument, the authors submit that due diligence to prevent significant environmental harm must be informed by the precautionary principle; that due diligence requires Australia to regulate third parties within its jurisdiction and control; that due diligence requires assessment of the cumulative effects of activities within Australia’s jurisdiction or control; that due diligence requires adopting mitigation measures that reflect best available science; that due diligence requires adopting mitigation measures that reflect best available science; that a State’s failure to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in ways consistent with due diligence is conduct attributable to that State that may violate human rights; that a State’s failure to regulate its export of fossil fuels, consistent with due diligence, is also attributable conduct that may violate human rights obligations; that there is a sufficient causal nexus between Australia’s non-compliance with human rights and the specific harms experienced by the authors; that legal standards of causation for individual harm in the context of climate harms are flexible, as demonstrated by various courts; that there is a sufficiently direct and certain causal nexus to satisfy the ICJ’s approach to causation when assessing injury; that Australia’s fossil fuel exports are a material contribution to climate change and have caused, and will foreseeably cause, harm to the authors; that continued fossil fuel production means that Australia is not taking the necessary measures to prevent harm to the climate system; and that these acts and omissions are violating ICCPR rights.

Attribution science (the Thiery, Watkins, Cook and Crisp reports):
The Communication extensively details the concrete impacts faced by the applicants, and is accompanied by several expert reports that attribute the harms experienced to the impacts of climate change. The “Thiery report” concerns overall climate attribution, including heatwaves, bushfires, ocean warming, severe storms, drought, algal blooms, and sea-level rise; the “Watkins Report” concerns flooding; and the “Cook Report” concerns toxic algal blooms. The authors also submitted two reports by Dr George Crisp on climate-related health impacts for two of the authors.

Export emissions (the Anderson and Claverly report):
The Communication challenges Australia’s plans to produce fossil fuel for export on the basis a report by Anderson and Claverly. The report evaluates whether the estimated carbon budgets compatible with ‘achieving around a 50% chance of not exceeding 1.5°C and around 83% chance of not exceeding 2°C’ of global warming can accommodate emissions from Australia’s projected coal and LNG exports. The authors of the report conclude that ‘under assumptions favourable to Australia,’ the evidence is unequivocal that Australia’s planned export pathways are not compatible with the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals.

Admissibility (the Peel Report):
On the admissibility of the communication, concerning the absence of proceedings on the domestic level, the authors argue that they have satisfied the exhaustion of domestic remedies rule because Australian law does not offer redress for the harms at stake and the rights violations invoked.

To support this argument, they submit a report authored by Prof. Jacqueline Peel, who together with two co-author shows that there are no effective remedies available to the Authors to redress their alleged harms to the standards set out previously by the Committee, as there are no effective judicial or administrative avenues to compel Australia to align its production of fossil fuels for export with pathways for 1.5°C of warming. This is due to the fact, in particular, that Australian courts cannot compel the government to align fossil fuel exports with a 1.5°C pathway; that there is no constitutional or national-level statutory bill of rights in Australia; that existing statutory frameworks do not provide an effective remedy; and that there is no common law duty of care owed to the Authors in this context. In doing so, the report reflects the Committee’s own reasoning in Daniel Billy and Others v. Australia (2022), where the Committee found that the communication was admissible because no effective remedy was available to the Authors.

Relief sought:
The authors seek for their ICCPR rights to be upheld and note that the violation of these rights cannot be addressed only through mitigation of emissions released in Australia or through adaptation measures. Instead, they argue, exported (“Scope 3”) emissions from Australia’s fossil fuel exports materially contribute to climate harms. They seek for the Committee to:

  • Declare that the Australian government’s acts and omissions related to fossil fuel production for export, and its failure to adequately regulate the public and private operators involved, violate its human rights obligations to prevent a global average temperature increase of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
  • Establish violations of the authors’ rights to life; privacy, family, and home life; and culture under the Covenant.
  • Recommend the creation of a domestic process to review the compatibility of Australia’s fossil fuel exports with pathways to limit warming to 1.5°C.
  • Recommend an urgent phaseout of production of fossil fuels for export, including ceasing relevant public subsidies.
  • Recommend that Australia pause approvals for fossil fuel production projects for export.

Case documents:
The communication in this case can be downloaded below.

unhrc-poelina-et-al-v-australia-20-06-2026_redactedDownload

Suggested citation:
UN Human Rights Committee, Anne Poelina, Barry Traill, Brendon Donohue, Catherine, Jack Egan, Latishamarie Francis, Pamelarose Francis, Melissa Fisher, Sama Youhana and Rikki Dank v. Australia, Communication of 20 June 2026.

Categories
Business responsibility / corporate cases Class action Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation European Convention on Human Rights Fossil fuel extraction Imminent risk Paris Agreement Private and family life Right to life The Netherlands

Milieudefensie et al. v. Shell Plc (No. 2)

Summary:
On 21 April 2026, the Dutch NGO Milieudefensie delivered summons to oil and gas giant Shell Plc, in its second collective legal action against the company following the first Milieudefensie case (decided on appeal in 2024). This second case, under Section 3:305a of the Dutch Civil Code (DCC), is brought on behalf of current and future generations of Dutch citizens after the corporate actor moved its seat from the Netherlands to the United Kingdom. Milieudefensie summoned Shell to appear at a hearing to be held at the District Court of Amsterdam on 29 July 2026.

In its 273-page summons, Milieudefensie covers issues of jurisdiction, the requirements for a collective suit under Section 3:305a DCC, the scientific evidence underpinning its case, the risk of reaching climate tipping points for Europe and for the Netherlands, international climate policy and the global 1.5-degree temperature target, the important role played by non-state actors and their corporate responsibilities to respect human rights, the inhibiting influence of the oil and gas industry, including Shell, on infrastructural carbon lock-ins, including through its historical undermining of climate science and strategies to delay climate action, as well as its lobbying against the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD or CS3D) of 13 June 2024.

Milieudefensie sets out the framework for assessing Shell’s responsibility under Sections 3:296 and 6:162 DCC, fleshing this out by invoking the societal duty of care under domestic law, as well as the doctrine of hazardous negligence, human rights law (particularly Articles 2 and 8 ECHR, the rights to life and respect for private and family life), international customary law, international soft law, and legal principles including the precautionary principle, the climate law principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR), and the principle of intergenerational justice. In particular, the summons argues that

“[s]ince the Urgenda judgment, it has been widely recognised in court judgments that dangerous climate change leads to human rights violations. Not only the ECHR, but also the IACtHR and the ICJ have recently found this. Numerous (supreme) national courts have independently reached the same conclusion. Within Europe, for example, reference can be made to the case law of the [German] Bundesverfassungsgericht and the Court of Appeal in Brussels. Outside Europe, the situation is no different. For example, the Lahore High Court in Pakistan, the Supreme Court of Colombia, the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court, the District Court of Montana (United States) and the Supreme Court of India have all ruled that human rights can be relied on in order to be protected against the effects of climate change. In view of the above, there can be no misunderstanding that human rights (indirectly) have a horizontal effect when the unwritten duty-of-care standard is fleshed out. Nor can there be any debate about the fact that dangerous climate change leads to human rights violations and that human rights can be relied on for protection against dangerous climate change. The only question that remains is what assessment framework needs to be applied here. “

Milieudefensie argues that Shell bears a share of the responsibility to prevent dangerous climate change, discussing its level of knowledge and the foreseeability of harm by arguing that Shell has long known about the fact that fossil fuels cause climate change, with serious consequences for people and the environment, has known that it is making a substantial contribution to climate change and that it needs to take (precautionary) measures. It sets out Shell’s two-pillared obligations: first, a reduction obligation for Scope 1, 2 and 3 CO2 emissions, and second, an obligation not to develop new oil and gas fields.

Concerning the first pillar of obligations, Milieudefensie argues that “Shell must make an equitable contribution (a “fair share”) to preventing dangerous climate change and limiting global warming to 1.5°C by reducing its emissions.” In doing so, it invokes UN reports to argue that:

  • companies must demonstrate maximum ambition to achieve (net) zero CO2 emissions as quickly as possible, but by 2050 at the latest;
  • companies must set ambitious and credible interim targets for the short and medium term on the road to the above-mentioned goal of net zero CO2 emissions that represent a fair share of the global reduction target; and
  • the (interim) targets should cover all Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and should aim for absolute CO2 emission reductions.  

It also submits that “Shell can be considered to be an influential Western company in several respects; it has both substantial emissions and large transition capabilities and a large historical responsibility. These are all relevant circumstances under the above-mentioned climate protocols (as evidenced by e.g. the reference to the CBDR principle and the need to take on a fair share of the global target) for asking Shell to take on an above-average responsibility and requiring it to reduce its emissions faster than the global average.”

As concerns the second pillar of obligations, Milieudefensie argues that Shell’s obligation not to pursue new fossil fuel projects is “based on the doctrine of hazardous negligence, human rights law, the legal principles discussed, soft law and other objective points of reference, is that Shell must cease the development and production of new oil and gas fields. After all, the carbon budget with a 50% probability of 1.5°C is already exceeded with the operation of the existing fossil-fuel infrastructure alone, and new oil and gas fields are therefore incompatible with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century. “

Milieudefensie concludes that Shell is breaching its societal duty of care under domestic law, and seeks the following provisionally enforceable remedies:

  • Emissions reductions, covering annual Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, as per the table below;
  • A prohibition of achieving these reductions through divestment, i.e. through transfer of shares or assets;
  • To prohibit Shell from making use of carbon credits for the purpose of achieving the emission reductions described;
  • To order Shell to achieve that the Shell Group ceases, continues to cease and does not start the production of new oil and gas from fields.

More information:
The full text of the summons (translated into English by Milieudefensie) is available below. For more information on the case, see here.

Summons Milieudefensie v. Shell (No. 2)Download

Suggested citation:
District Court of Amsterdam, Milieudefensie et al. v. Shell Plc (No. 2), summons issued 21 April 2026.

Categories
Belgium Business responsibility / corporate cases Domestic court Farming Fossil fuel extraction Private and family life Right to life

Falys et al. v. TotalEnergies (‘The Farmer Case’)

Summary:

In March 2024, Hugues Falys, a farmer located in Belgium, filed a legal action at the Commercial Court of Tournai (Belgium) against TotalEnergies. He was joined by Ligue des Droits Humains, Greenpeace Belgium and FIAN Belgium.

The objective of the legal action is to claim compensation for damages suffered by Falys as a result of climate breakdown, and to force TotalEnergies to move away from fossil fuels. The plaintiffs argue that Falys’s farm in Lessines (BE) has suffered a number of extreme weather events, including heatwaves and droughts, resulting in major financial losses, extra workload, stress and worry.

The civil liability action is based on articles 1382 and 1383 of the former Belgian Civil Code. In their submissions to the court, the plaintiffs have put forward human rights arguments as one line of interpretation of the relevant provisions, inter alia referring the ECtHR’s judgment in KlimaSeniorinnen multiple times.

Relevant developments:

On March 18 2026, the Commercial Court of Tournai found the action to be admissible, thereby recognising that carbon majors can be held accountable in Belgium for causing climate change even if their headquarters is in another state. With regards to the merits of the case, the Court postponed its judgment to 9 September 2026 to await the decision in a similar case against TotalEnergies in France.

See also:

Notre Affaire à Tous and Others v. Total.

Links:

For the main conclusions of the plaintiffs (in French), see here.

For an unofficial translation of the main conclusions of the plaintiffs (in English), see here.

For the Court’s admissibility judgment of 18 March 2026 (in French), see here.

Last updated:

20 March 2026.

Categories
2026 Blog Class action Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation European Convention on Human Rights Margin of appreciation Private and family life The Netherlands

Bonaire Climate Case: Creative or Questionable Interpretation of International Climate Law?

Pranav Ganesan, PhD Candidate at the University of Zurich

The Greenpeace Netherlands v. State of the Netherlands (Bonaire) judgment of the Hague District Court has stolen the limelight as the new posterchild for strategic climate litigation. The plaintiff in this case, Greenpeace Netherlands, argued that the Dutch government failed in its duty to protect the residents of Bonaire, an island in the Caribbean which formally attained the status of a special municipality of the Netherlands in 2010. Although it is a special municipality (bijzondere gemeente), it is just as much a part of the Netherlands as any other province in the European Netherlands. The Dutch government owes obligations under international human rights law, including those arising from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), towards residents of the municipality. That international human rights law requires states to undertake climate mitigation measures and adaptation measures, as informed by international climate change law where relevant, has been affirmatively held in two advisory opinions from international courts and the European Court of Human Rights. And the proposition that the Dutch government’s duty of care towards its population essentially includes obligations under the ECHR was confirmed by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands in Urgenda. Thus, it comes as no surprise that in material respects, the Hague District Court’s reasoning was so heavily based on international law.[1] In terms of the scope of state conduct implicated in this case, it outdoes the Urgenda case,which only concerned contributions to the mitigation of climate change. The Hague District Court agreed with the plaintiff that the Dutch government had violated Article 8 ECHR as well as the prohibition of discrimination (Art. 14 ECHR and Art. 1 of Protocol No. 12 to the ECHR), the former due to inadequate mitigation measures, inadequate implementation of those measures, delays in adopting an adaptation plan for Bonaire and late provision of procedural safeguards to the residents of Bonaire. In this blog, I provide a quick analysis of the District Court’s engagement with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and Paris Agreement in the section on mitigation measures. Readers interested in learning about the adaptation component and how the court addressed discrimination claim are welcome to read this blogpost by Wewerinke-Singh.

There are areas in the judgment where the District Court’s assessment of the compatibility of the Dutch Climate law framework with international climate law is questionable. The first glaring issue is that the court made a finding of non-compliance with Article 4(4) of the Paris Agreement based on the absence of ‘absolute emissions reduction targets’ in the Dutch Climate Act of 2019 (para 11.13.1). The problem identified by the court was that the targets were expressed as goals that the government would ‘strive to achieve.’ However, this does not mean that the targets are not absolute. The difference between absolute and relative emissions reductions targets being whether they are expressed as percentage reductions in comparison to the emissions during a fixed baseline year, as opposed to reductions from a business as usual scenario in case of relative targets (Winkler et al 2014, 636). The use of the expression ‘strive to achieve’ means that the nature of the obligation to achieve the target is one of conduct rather than result, reflecting the nature of the obligation to pursue domestic mitigation measures in pursuance of NDCs communicated under Article 4(2) of the Paris Agreement (ICJ Advisory Opinion, paras 251-253). Another connected example is the court’s declaration that ‘UN standards’ require emission reduction targets to be expressed as percentage reductions to be achieved by the target date, in comparison to 2019 levels as opposed to the 1990 baseline (para 11.13.2). Moreover, strictly speaking, Article 12(8) of the UNFCCC does not require the EU to provide information about each member state’s national carbon budget like the court suggests (para 11.15.3). The court’s interpretation of these treaty provisions might be technically imprecise, but it is undoubtedly bold, being based on the need for exemplary efforts from a developed country like the Netherlands, and reflecting the appropriate sense of urgency in light of the results of the First Global Stocktake (para 11.9.4). Through its interpretive moves, the court effectively hardened ‘soft’ obligations (i.e. normative expectations) sourced from the Paris Agreement and COP decisions (on hard and soft obligations in the Paris Agreement, see Rajamani, 2016).

A final noteworthy aspect of the judgment is the rather detailed response to how the notion of ‘equity’ in Article 3(1) of the UNFCCC and Articles 2(1) and 4(1) of the Paris Agreement is to be applied in reviewing states’ mitigation commitments. Equity is an elusive concept, with debates on what an equitable distribution of the global emissions reduction burden entails having remained unsettled since the inception of international negotiations on the topic of climate mitigation (Oliver Herrera et al, 2025). The court provided the (un)acceptability of a ‘grandfathering approach’ as an example of one such debate (para 11.13.5). But it did not go so far as to hold that the grandfathering approach is legally impermissible because it is inequitable per se, or that an equal per capita emissions approach is the minimum standard under international law. Rather, it assessed the Netherlands’ policy negatively on account of its failure to justify why its current policy, which is based on the controversial grandfathering principle and falls short of the ambition required by the equal per capita emissions approach, is equitable in accordance with Article 3(1) of the UNFCCC and Article 4(1). It thus did not use equity to dictate the outcome of what exactly the Dutch government’s fair share of the global carbon emissions ought to be. At same time, it did not use the underlying controversy as a reason to entirely avoid reviewing the substance of the Dutch climate mitigation policy. This is underscored by its remedial findings, wherein the court declared that the Netherlands’ current mitigation commitments were inequitable, thereby leading to a breach of Article 8 (para 12.1), but dismissed Greenpeace’s request ordering the adoption of specific emissions reduction targets by the government, or at least a carbon budget reflecting the ‘equal per capita emissions approach’ (paras 8.1 (IV)-(VI), 11.55 and 11.58).

Overall, the Bonaire judgment shows how climate litigation can lead to precarious precedents. On the one hand, the way the Court engaged with the concept of equity provided an assessment of Dutch mitigation ambition which was notably pragmatic and might serve as inspiration for other courts when asked to answer the fair share question. On the other hand, the judgment risks signaling to states that legal texts—which negotiators toiled to craft in ‘constructively ambiguous’ terms—may be stretched by domestic courts to uncomfortable extents. Ultimately, the appellate court’s scrutiny of this case (should the Dutch government file an appeal) will reveal how this judgment will be remembered: whether it will be hailed for its boldness or criticized for its questionable interpretation of international treaties.

[1] André Nollkaemper commented: ‘Today’s judgment of the District Court of The Hague fully lives up to the reputation of Dutch courts as strongly international law-minded. […] The conclusion is firmly anchored in international law. With 29 references to the ICJ Advisory Opinion on Climate Change, 64 references to the European Court’s KlimaSeniorinnen judgment, 64 to the UNFCCC, 62 to the Paris Agreement, and 12 to COP decisions, this surely ranks high on the list of climate change cases that are most shaped by international law.’

Categories
Access to a remedy Children and young people Children's rights/best interests Emissions reductions/mitigation Fair trial Fossil fuel extraction Human dignity Imminent risk Inter-American Human Rights System Non-discrimination Private and family life Public trust doctrine Right to a healthy environment Right to culture Right to health Right to life Right to property United States of America

Our Children’s Trust with 15 Juliana Plaintiffs v. The United States of America

Summary:
On 23 September 2025, the NGO Our Children’s Trust announced that it had filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging climate-related violations of human rights by the government of the United States of America on behalf of a group of youth. This petition follows the advisory opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on climate change, which was issued on 29 May 2025, as well as drawing on the climate advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice. The petitioners were formerly plaintiffs in the Juliana proceedings brought before US domestic courts on the basis of the public trust doctrine, among others.

Before the Inter-American Commission, the petitioners allege that the United States has known for decades that CO2 emissions cause climate change and that a transition away from fossil fuels is needed to protect human rights. They argue that, as the world’s largest emitter, the United States has played a leading role in causing climate change, and that its greenhouse gas emissions — and the resulting climate change — violate the human rights of children and youth, who are disproportionately impacted by its effects.

They claim before the Commission that the United States has failed to comply with its international obligations to guarantee the petitioners’ human rights, that it has a duty to prevent harm to the global climate system to guarantee those rights, that it brached its obligation to act with due diligence ot guarantee their rights and prevent harm to the climate system, that if violated its obligation to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions,a form of pollution, and that the United States’s deliberate emissions of greenhouse gasses violate the substantive rights of the petitioners as per the American Declaration, including the rights to life and health, the particular protections for children, equality and non-discrimination, the rights to home, property and private and family life, the right to culture, the right to dignity, and the right to a healthy climate.

They also invoke their procedural rights, namely the rights to access to justice and an effective remedy, alleging that the United States Department of Justice has deployed “extraordinary tactics” to silence the petitioners, and that the domestic courts failed to consider the merits of their claims.

In their request for relief, the petitioners inter alia request the Commission to:

  • order precautionary measures to prevent further irreparable harm;
  • join the admissibility and merits of the petition, in accordance with Article 37(4) of the Commission’s Rules of Procedure, given the serious and urgent nature of the case and the ongoing violations of Petitioners’ fundamental rights;
  • conduct an on-site country visit, including a visit with the Petitioners, and hold fact-finding hearings;
  • establish violations of Articles I (life), II (equality), V (private and family life), VI (family), VII (special protections for children), IX (inviolability of the home), XI (health), XIII (cultural life), XVIII (access to justice and effective remedies), XXIII (property), and XXIV (prompt and effective remedy) of the American Declaration and the rights to dignity (Preamble) and to a healthy climate; and
  • issue a country report with recommendations to the United States to remedy confirmed violations of international law, taking into account the clarifications of existing law set forth by the IACtHR and the ICJ in their in Advisory Opinions on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights and the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change.

Full text of the petition:

The full text of the petition can be found below.

_2025.09.23+Juliana-IACHR+PetitionDownload

Suggested citation:

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Our Children’s Trust with 15 Juliana Plaintiffs v. The United States of America, petition filed on 23 September 2025.