Human Rights and Climate Inaction: Suing Governments is the New Trend in Environmentalism
“States are meant to protect their citizens, and if politicians will not do this of their own accord, then the courts are there to help,” says Marjan Minnesma, director and founder of the sustainable non-profit Urgenda Foundation. For the last half-century, environmentalists such as Minnesma have developed countless methods to take climate action into their own hands where political attempts are clearly lacking. Environmental law has been gaining momentum in this regard since the early 90s, with local and international cases emerging across all regions of the world. Within this field, there has been an increasingly growing trend which began in 2013, when Minnesma and her foundation set the precedent for a human rights legal obligation regarding climate change prevention.
The Urgenda foundation accused the Dutch government of violating its people’s human rights by not taking sufficient action towards avoiding dangerous and irreversible climate change. It was both the first climate liability suit, as well as the first case in which climate responsibility was linked to a human rights-based argument. Many others followed the example of Urgenda after the Netherlands’ supreme court ruled in its favour, declaring that the Dutch government was required to urgently cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 in order to protect its citizens. From Pakistan to New Zealand, suing governments for the disregard of their peoples’ basic human rights caused by environmental inaction has become the new trend in environmentalism.
The Urgenda Foundation and its 886 co-plaintiffs argued in their lawsuit that preventing climate change isn’t solely the morally and politically just thing to do, but it is also the Dutch government’s legal obligation. This is due to the supreme court’s principle regarding the government’s duty to prevent foreseeable harm, as well as Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). These articles refer specifically to the ‘right to life’ and the ‘right to private and family life’, which, given the future danger that the climate crisis entails for the Netherlands and its population, would legally oblige the government to increase its efforts in fighting climate change. Until the ruling, the Netherlands’ climate agenda was not comprehensive enough to prevent dangerous biophysical and socio-economic repercussions for its citizens, which it had even admitted in a letter to Urgenda, strengthening further their case against the government.
Although the government appealed the result of the ruling several times, the court’s verdict remained the same throughout, demonstrating the strong legal basis backing both the lawsuit and the ruling. Dennis van Berkel, a member of the legal counsel for Urgenda, stated that the principles expressed in the Urgenda Climate Case are universal, adding that “no court outside the Netherlands is bound by this decision but the influence that this court has and the inspiration that it will give to others are really big.” This can be said particularly about the members of the EU, also themselves bound by Articles 2 and 8 of the ECHR, which intrinsically link the fight for climate justice and human rights. It is thus no surprise that after this case others emerged in Belgium, Ireland, Germany, France, UK, and even against the EU itself.
Likewise, in Colombia, a group of 25 young people from ages 7 to 26 was also inspired by Urgenda, and they took it upon themselves to file a similar lawsuit. In this instance, however, the group chose to cite their constitutionally protected right to life and a healthy environment, stating that the government was threatening the livelihoods of countless Colombians due to its continued disregard of the Amazon’s ecosystem and the climate crisis. The supreme court of Colombia ultimately ruled in favour of the plaintiffs, leading to a series of achievements that, in part, have also exceeded the original results of the Urgenda case: firstly, it recognised the rights of future Colombian generations, and secondly, it recognised the Amazon forest as an entity worthy of rights. Essentially this means that the Colombian state must “protect, conserve, maintain, and restore” the Amazon as if it were another citizen. This case was also the first time that a lawsuit of this kind ruled in favour of the environment in Latin America.
The most recent of these lawsuits was brought forward in France in 2019, by four groups including the French branches of Greenpeace and Oxfam. Last February, a French court ruled that the government’s efforts in reducing greenhouse gas emissions were insufficient and that, because of this, they had caused “ecological damage.” It was also mentioned that the French government was not on track to achieve its climate commitments for 2020 pledged according to the Paris Agreement. Therefore, the court gave the government two months to act upon its pre-existing climate goals before any additional order was given to reduce emissions and to repair for the environmental damage it had caused. Furthermore, the ruling prompted president Macron to establish a Citizen’s Climate Council, and, more importantly, to call for a referendum that would decide on the addition of a new section to the French constitution regarding environmental protection.
This addition would be similar to the already existing article in the Colombian constitution regarding the right to a healthy environment. While over 100 constitutions across the world, almost all regional human rights treaties, and every level of the world’s legal systems have acknowledged the human right to a healthy and liveable environment, international law still does not. This is somewhat surprising as the intersection and interdependence between human rights and environmental protection has been frequently stressed by scholars, lawyers and politicians alike. Even entities such as the UN Environmental Programme, or accords such as the Paris Agreement, or even figures such as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, have stated the unbreakable link between human rights and a healthy environment. Yet, the UN is still hesitant to directly endorse this link at the international level.
Despite this, several movements have arisen throughout the world seeking to make the right to a healthy environment a globally recognised principle. In June 2017, Club des Juristes, a French legal think tank with jurists from over 40 countries across the world, began the initiative of a ‘Global Pact for the Environment’ which would allow for an international legal framework better suited to protect the planet. This pact would be legally binding, and it would consolidate the shortcomings of international environmental law. Indeed, the latter is still heavily fragmented in numerous treaties, contracts, and accords with very specific and thus limiting topics regarding the environment.
Moreover, the Pact would be founded on both the right to live in a healthy environment and the duty to take care of the environment, two clearly essential parts of the climate fight which are still being disregarded by some of the most important international governing bodies in the world. The ‘Global Pact for the Environment’ would allow for environmental law and climate change litigation to have the perfect legal basis through which all governments across the world would be obliged to take the required action to prevent irreversible climate change. Until then, we can hope that the fight for environmental justice will continue by condemning governments’ inadequate responses to the climate crisis.
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