Considering the court this was filed in, it just may well succeed
Does Climate Change Violate Children’s Human Rights? A European Court May Soon Decide
The summer of 2017 was hugely stressful for Sofia and André Oliveira, then aged 12 and 9. From their home in Lisbon, they watched a season of record wildfires and severe heat waves tear through Portugal, killing 120 people. For the children, it was already clear that the extreme heat –which scientists linked to climate change –would not be an isolated chapter in their lives. “We’ve always talked about climate change at home,†Sofia, now 15, says over video chat, sitting next to her brother at the family’s dining room table. “And we wanted to do something—something big.â€
If she wants to do something big, she should give up all the trappings of modern life that are linked by the Cult of Climastrology to “carbon pollution.” That video chat uses lots of energy, right? Let her live like it’s 1499. Instead, she wants to enforce her own cultish beliefs on everyone across Europe
Three years later, after three more summers that broke heat records, the Oliveira children are on the cusp of a major breakthrough in their climate action. In September, aided by a still-ongoing crowdfunding effort, Sofia, André and four other young Portugeuse people filed the first ever climate-related case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), arguing that governments in 33 European countries have not done enough to prevent the impacts of climate change from violating their citizens’ human rights. In a landmark decision on Nov. 30, the court announced it would take the case to the next step— forwarding it to defendant countries and ordering them to respond to the case’s arguments—and granted it priority status.
Only around 15% of cases submitted to the ECHR made it to this stage in 2019, and even fewer were fast-tracked, according to Global Legal Action Network, which filed the case. In a further good sign for the plaintiffs, the court took the unusual step of extending the scope of the case, asking, in its letter to the parties, whether climate change may constitute a violation of Article 3 of the European Human Rights Act on “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishmentâ€â€”a point not even raised in their lawyers’s submission.
The ECHR’s decisions are legally binding, and if it hears the case and finds in favour of the Portuguese youth, it could order national governments in Europe to step up their emissions reductions. “The communication of this case is a momentous event. It’s the first occasion when the court has had the opportunity to grapple with climate change and its impact on European citizens,†says Marc Willers QC, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers, one of the lawyers on the case. “It seems to have decided that it can’t avoid the issue.â€
That the court took it up and then extended the scope of the case doesn’t bode well for the citizens of Europe, but, then, they keep voting for all these uber Progressive elected officials who they vote for the judges in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
The case submitted to the ECHR argues that the climate impacts seen in Portugal are violating the rights of the Oliveira children and the other four young plaintiffs that should be guaranteed under the European Human Rights Act. In particular, Willers, the barrister says, lawyers focused on the right to life, the right to a home and family life, and the right to enjoy their rights free of discrimination. The case argues the disparity in different generations’ experience of climate change constitutes discrimination in their enjoyment of human rights, since today’s young people will experience rising sea levels, extreme heat, storms and other extreme weather events, for far longer and with greater intensity than previous generations.
These kids are living better lives than their parents and grandparents ever did. Here’s an idea
