The Bonaire Climate Case
Once again, all eyes were on The Hague. After groundbreaking rulings in the Urgenda and Shell cases, the District Court in The Hague on 28 January delivered another important climate change decision in the case of Greenpeace Netherlands v. The Netherlands (Bonaire). The court, acknowledging the contested political context in which the ruling was made, sought to square the circle of state mitigation obligations by balancing potentially far-reaching considerations about the mitigation efforts required from states like the Netherlands with an innovative procedural and dialogue-oriented remedy. Continue reading >>
Europe’s Climate Crisis Is a Rule-of-Law Crisis
After watering down the 2040 emission reduction target, running the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive over by the Omnibus, and now attempting to kill the combustion engine ban, European climate governance has entered the territory of lawlessness. European climate governance is no longer only about the climate. It has become a rule of law issue and should be treated as such. Continue reading >>
A Step Forward in Italian Climate Litigation
Climate litigation achieved an important milestone in Italy. In a landmark order on 18 July 2025, the Supreme Court of Cassation confirmed that Italian courts may assert jurisdiction over climate-related damages for the first time. The ruling opens the door to holding both public and private actors liable for climate inaction. Continue reading >>
Quantifying Fair Share Carbon Budgets
An obligation to quantify each country’s fair share of the remaining global carbon budget associated with limiting global heating to 1.5°C flows from the judgment in KlimaSeniorinnen. While there will naturally be debate about what represents a country’s fair share – the EU’s independent advisory body ESAB recently considered a range of fair share principles and concluded that the EU’s fair share has already been used up under many of these – the obligation to quantify fair share budgets should, in our view, be the subject of a reduced margin of appreciation consistent with KlimaSeniorinnen. Continue reading >>
Fast Fashion, Slow Transition
In the new ultra-fast fashion era, garment production cycles are accelerated to new heights, while the quality of the garments deteriorates. Key characteristics of the industry are its reliance on cheap manufacturing, overconsumption and short-lived garment use. This blog post will set out who is responsible for the protection of human rights from climate change within the textile industry. In a second step, this blog post aims to analyse the EU Strategy, focusing on the intersection between environmental and social rights in the textile industry. Continue reading >>
Admissibility Revisited
In an effort to force the European Union to adopt more ambitious climate targets, two environmental NGOs initiated a proceeding before the EU General Court, invoking the rarely used mechanism of “internal review” under the EU’s Aarhus Regulation. The reason for this unusual approach lies within a reoccurring issue of climate litigation: overcoming restrictive admissibility requirements. This new approach follows a path that had not yet been considered by legal scholarship or practice. While the line of argument is rather innovative, it goes beyond the boundaries of the Aarhus Regulation and is therefore likely to fail. Continue reading >>Warum das KlimaSeniorinnen-Urteil nicht undemokratisch ist
Der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR) hat im Fall „KlimaSeniorinnen" ein bemerkenswertes Urteil zugunsten einer lebenswerten Zukunft für alle gefällt. Vor allem in der Schweiz stieß das Urteil jedoch auf scharfe Kritik. Die Schweizer Volkspartei bezeichnete den Entscheid als „dreiste Einmischung fremder Richter", der Aargauer Zeitung spricht von einer „Aushebelung der Demokratie". Der Entscheid des EGMR – zumindest nach Schweizer Verständnis – wirft also zentrale Fragen der Gewaltenteilung und der Rolle der Justiz bei der Beurteilung von Menschenrechten auf. Continue reading >>
From Strasbourg to Luxembourg?
KlimaSeniorinnen has established a remedy which, in EU law, is not easy to locate and may actually be unavailable in light of restrictive CJEU case law. Whatever one’s views on this restrictive case law, it is a fact that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights now obliges the CJEU to do as much as it can to accommodate the KlimaSeniorinnen remedy and to interpret the relevant TFEU provisions flexibly. One may assume that, sooner or later, the CJEU will be confronted with a KlimaSeniorinnen claim. If the CJEU were to declare such a claim inadmissible, it will put itself in the corner of courts refusing to engage with climate change policies. That would be unfortunate for a court that has long been at the forefront of legal progress.
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After Switzerland Comes Austria
The KlimaSeniorinnen judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has been the subject of intense debate for several weeks. One focus was on the question of standing, i.e., who can bring a lawsuit connected to climate change and human rights before the ECtHR. However, less attention has been paid to the question of the impact of the judgment on currently pending climate change cases before the ECtHR. This blog post sheds light on “climate change case number four”, a case against Austria primarily challenging the shortcomings of the Austrian Climate Protection Act.
Continue reading >>What Does the European Court of Human Rights’ First Climate Change Decision Mean for Climate Policy?
On 9 April the European Court of Human Rights issued its first ever comprehensive decision in a climate litigation case. The ECtHR has set out clear directions for member states to follow to align their climate policies with human rights obligations. Domestic legislators across Europe must give these requirements serious consideration to ensure their climate laws not only meet these minimum standards but also effectively contribute to global climate goals. This is imperative for both environmental sustainability and the protection of fundamental human rights that climate change is affecting. Continue reading >>