The senior women fighting for a livable planet

The fight against the climate crisis is also a fight for climate justice. A growing number of activists world wide point to the fact that preventing effective climate protection is therefore also a violation of human rights.

A lawsuit has now been brought before the European Court of Human Rights by a group of elderly women from Switzerland, all of whom are of retirement age, demanding an independent judicial review of climate policy.

The women call themselves Klimaseniorinnen, which could be translated as 'Senior Women for Climate Protection,' and are registered as an association in Switzerland. Its goal is for the Swiss government to fulfill its duty to protect the population and pursue climate goals that meet the requirements to prevent a catastrophic disruption of the climate system.

But these Swiss women are not on their own. A former mayor of the small town of Grande-Synthe in northern France has sued the French government for failing to act on climate protection. Meanwhile, a group of six young Portuguese are filing lawsuits against 32 European countries after the devastating 2017 forest fires that killed 65 people.

All three cases were heard before the Grand Chamber of the European Court that Wednesday morning.

Fighting climate change means protecting human rights

"The current climate plans of the Swiss government fall short of the goal of protecting the population from catastrophic consequences," Pia Hollenstein, a board member of Klimaseniorinnen, explained. "In doing so, they violate fundamental rights protected by both, the Swiss constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, which also applies to Switzerland. Therefore, we have filed a lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights."

Klimaseniorinnen was founded in 2016 by a group of around 150 women. They initially appealed to Swiss courts, but were unsuccessful. In Switzerland, an individual cannot file a complaint before the Federal Constitutional Court, the highest court in Switzerland.

"That’s why we had to form an association," Hollenstein explained. "And we had to represent a particularly vulnerable group to be admitted. And it has now been proven that older women are particularly vulnerable to global warming."

Their first success came on 29 March, 2023. The group was invited to a public hearing on their complaint before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

"Switzerland's representative appeared surprisingly ill-prepared, as if he had never heard of the consequences of climate change," said Hollenstein, who, as a former National Councilor for the canton of St. Gallen, has political experience herself. "As a Swiss, his appearance was almost embarrassing."

A continent-wide ripple effect?

Governments have previously been sued to step up efforts to fight the climate crisis, as in the case of Urgenda vs. the Dutch government, on which FairPlanet reported.

But what makes the complaint of the Klimaseniorinnen stand out is that for the first time a complaint about violation of human rights through failure to protect the climate is being heard at the supreme court level. And should the European Court of Human Rights rule in favor of the elderly Swiss ladies, it would be binding for all 46 member states of the Council of Europe, not just for the European Union, but also for countries such as Iceland, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey or Switzerland.

Its ruling would therefore not only have a tremendous signal effect, but could open up the possibility for citizens in all of these countries to sue their respective government for violations of human rights and to push for more climate protection.

A coalition of climate defenders

The Klimaseniorinnen did not take up the fight alone. Their lawsuit was supported by 23 individuals and organisations, and Greenpeace Switzerland has agreed to subsadise all legal expenses.

One of these supporting organisations is ClientEarth, an environmental protection charity filing lawsuits to push politicians around the globe towards better protection of the planet.

"There is no doubt that international courts and tribunals have an important role to play in the climate crisis and in clarifying the obligations of states under international law - and thus also on human rights," said Lea Main-Klingst, a lawyer at ClientEarth. "We keep following these developments closely and participate in a supportive way – as in the case of the Klimaseniorinnen."

As of today, Klimaseniorinnen have more than 2,000 members whose average age is 73.

"It's quite a natural thing for a group of older people to lose membership as a result of death," Hollenstein said. "So the media interest and all the publicity we get from the lawsuit is also good for attracting new members."

A verdict is not expected until next year, some hope that the Strasbourg judges will come forward just in time for the next world climate summit, COP28, which will be held in Dubai from 30 November to 10 December, 2023.

Image by Kathrin Grissemann : Ex-Press.