European human rights court hears climate cases against France, Switzerland
Strasbourg: German protesters demonstrate ahead of the hearing on Wednesday.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is hearing climate cases against the governments of France and Switzerland over the alleged failings to protect the environment. On Wednesday, the ECHR said the case against Switzerland is based on a complaint by the Club of Climate Seniors (an association of elderly people) concerned with the consequences of global warming on their living conditions and health, the news agency AFP reported.
The association, backed by Greenpeace Switzerland, has accused Swiss authorities of various climate change failings which they say amount to the violation of the government's obligation to protect life and homes and families of the citizens.
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Jessica Simor, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said that her clients were already suffering the effects of climate change that Switzerland was not doing enough to stop. Simor added that temperatures were rising twice as quickly in the country as the global average.
Alain Chablais, representing the Swiss government, told the ECHR that it was baseless to claim or suggest that the government was doing nothing. Chablais added that the ECHR had no business becoming the place where national climate protection policy is decided, AFP reported.
Meanwhile, the case against France was brought by Damien Careme, the former mayor of Grande-Synthe, who argued that the government failed to meet its obligation to protect life by taking insufficient steps to prevent climate change.
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When Careme was serving as the mayor, he brought the case to the French judiciary not only on behalf of his town but also on his own behalf, saying climate change was raising the risk of his home being flooded. In 2021, the country's highest administrative court ruled in favour of Grande-Synthe against the central government.
However, the court threw out the individual case brought by Careme, which he then took to the ECHR.
Speaking to the news agency on Wednesday, Corinne Lepag, one of Careme's lawyers, said the stakes were extremely high. Lepag, the former ecology minister of France, said, "European court recognises that climate failings violate the rights of individuals to life and a normal family life, then that becomes precedent in all of the council's member states and potentially in the whole world."
(With inputs from agencies)
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