Climate, Justice and Democracy

If it is desirable and necessary, as Futuribles regularly stresses, to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions (GGE), the question is to what extent and whether courts can legitimately force states to adopt a precise climate policy framework in the name of human rights. Following judgments in the Netherlands (and, indeed, in France in the ‘Affair of the Century’), Olivier Godard contests the legal basis for the European Court of Human Rights’ decision on 6 April 2024 to penalize the Swiss state for tardiness in establishing a quantified framework for reducing GGE. His reasoning is based on four main arguments: misuse of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s studies, particularly with regard to the 1.5°C limit; the ECHR’s doctrine departing significantly from its foundations in the European Convention on Human Rights; the ‘quasi-dissolution’ of the required ‘causal connection’ between the alleged government shortcomings and the climate damage suffered by citizens (an excess of heatwaves); and, lastly, a misconceived extension of the right to a ‘clean, healthy, sustainable environment’ to cover meteorological phenomena beyond the control of any human agent. How, then, can civil society act to defend the ecological cause? Is this not, in fact, a political question that takes different forms in democracies and totalitarian states?