Greenpeace welcomes the UN Court of Justice's "historic" ruling and hopes it will boost citizen complaints.
Geneva, July 23 (EFE).- The environmental organization Greenpeace welcomed the ruling issued Wednesday by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), recognizing the responsibility of states in the fight against climate change, and expressed hope that it will serve to initiate citizen action like the one taken last decade by elderly Swiss women against their government.
"At a time when more and more communities around the world are turning to the courts to protect our future, this decision will give new impetus to citizen initiatives and strengthen the growing wave of legal action for more ambitious climate action," said Georg Klinger, climate expert at Greenpeace Switzerland, in a statement.
Wednesday's legal ruling "is one in a series of decisions by the world's leading courts, all of which have concluded that governments have a legal obligation to protect people from the climate crisis," the Greenpeace expert added.
In this regard, Klinger recalled the pioneering initiative started by the association KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz (Swiss Older Women for Climate), which sued the Swiss government for not taking sufficient measures to curb global warming and which last year won a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The ICJ's decision, in line with that of the ECHR, "demonstrates that Switzerland is fighting a losing battle," Klinger said.
In Spain, the organization noted that this ruling "marks a shift in international law, which is beginning to place climate protection and human rights above the economic interests of corporations."
"States can no longer continue to evade their climate obligations, and polluters must pay for the damage they have caused. From now on, national courts must apply this international doctrine, holding both governments and companies accountable," said the institution's lawyer, Lorena Ruiz-Huerta.
Countries are obliged to prevent damageThe ICJ, based in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled Wednesday that failure to comply with climate obligations is "an internationally wrongful act" that can lead to "reparations" for the injured country. It also considered that climate change treaties establish "binding obligations" for signatory countries to "prevent significant damage."
In its advisory opinion, requested by the UN General Assembly in March 2023, the Court held that countries have "a duty to prevent significant damage" to the environment and "must use all means at their disposal to prevent activities within their jurisdiction or control from causing such damage."
KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz, an association made up of more than 2,000 Swiss women over the age of 65, filed a complaint with the ECHR against the Swiss government for not doing enough to "take care of them" and leaving them at the mercy of the consequences of global warming, including heat waves, which kill thousands of elderly people each year in regions such as Europe.
The ECHR's ruling, issued on April 9, 2024, in favor of the plaintiffs, opened the door for associations in other countries to challenge their governments' climate inaction before various judicial bodies. Initiatives in this regard have already been launched in countries such as Austria, Norway, Finland, and Germany.
However, at the end of August last year, the Swiss government (Executive) dismissed the Strasbourg court's ruling, arguing that the court had exceeded its powers and that the Central European country had, in any case, met the climate requirements cited in that ruling. EFE
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