Girl, 11, among six young people taking on 32 nations in historic climate case

Tory Splits Erupt Over Calls For UK To Quit European Court Of Human Rights

A case involving thousands of retired Swiss women is being heard at a European Court in France, the culmination of a six-year legal battle in which they claim their government's insufficient action on climate change violated their human rights.

Here are some of their arguments:

- The case documents, or application in legal jargon, alleges four violations of the European Convention of Human Rights (Arts 2, 6, 8 and 13) including the right to life.

- They say the women's age and gender places them in one of the categories cited by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as being at highest risk of temperature-related mortality. It also cites the IPCC saying heatwaves are becoming more frequent due to climate change.

- The case uses emerging evidence that older women are less able to regulate their body temperatures than others. It cites several reports including a 2014 World Health Organization document which says the majority of European studies show women are more at risk of dying from heatwaves.

- It says that around 30% of heat-related deaths in Switzerland can be attributed to climate change in recent years, citing a 2021 study published in Nature.

- Switzerland is aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and to achieve net zero by 2050. Lawyers for the applicants says its targets are "woefully inadequate".

- They take particular aim at Switzerland's strategy of purchasing emissions reductions abroad and accounting for them in national targets - a strategy that came under media scrutiny during the COP27 climate summit.

- The lawyers call for the Chamber to order rarely granted so-called "General Measures" which in this case mean concrete emission reduction targets within a fixed timeframe

Prof. Dr. Boštjan M. Zupančič is a former Judge and President of the Third Chamber at the European Court of Human Rights. His tenure as a judge in Strasbourg spanned nearly 18 years, from November 1998 to May 2016. According to his professional profile on LinkedIn, he is currently a self-employed legal consultant.

Prof. Dr. Boštjan M. Zupančič is also a raging antisemite who shares far-right, Neo Nazi and white supremacist material on social media.

In a landmark decision, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has today ruled that climate change violates the right to respect for one’s private and family life. This is the main legal basis through which the court has previous rule on environmental cases, but an “historic” one regarding the climate crisis, observers say. The case was brought by an association of older Swiss women concerned about the impact of global warming on their health, who claim the Swiss government is not taking enough action. The ECHR ruled by 16 judges to 1 that the KlimaSeniorinnen (Swiss Elders for Climate Protection) were subject to a violation of Article 8 as well as (unanimously) Article 6 - the right to a fair trial in their country. “While we do not have all the details yet - this decision is historic!” writes Sébastien Duyck, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmmental Law. “The Court has found the petition admissible and finds a violation of the rights of the Klimaseniorinnen both on process and on the substance!” Two other climate cases - brought by a former French mayor, and six Portuguese youth - were found to be inadmissible, however. [...] Today, the Strasbourg Court declared that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights encompasses a right to effective protection by the state “from the serious adverse effects of climate change on lives, health, well-being and quality of life”.

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This ruling could also apply to air ( e.g. PM2.5) and water pollution (e.g. PFAS), IMO.

#OTD in 1997 – The 'Birmingham Six' said that they would seek compensation in the European Court after British Home Secretary, Jack Straw said that he would not meet them to reconsider their case.

The six men each received £200,000 compensation (in addition to some interim payments) as compensation for 16 years of wrongful imprisonment. The men were also looking for an apology from the British government and complained for many years that no official ever offered them an apology for their false imprisonment. Mr Jack Straw apologised, however, the Six remained unhappy that he made no firm…

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Why the UK should not leave the ECHR - 1828 - Championing Freedom

Why the UK should not leave the ECHR LEE MARSONS FEBRUARY 23, 2023 According to reports this month, the Prime Minister would contemplate withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if the government’s policies on small boats are found to violate the ECHR. This would be the wrong decision.  The ECHR is an international treaty – separate from the European Union –…

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ATTENTION ANYONE AND EVERYONE WHO CARES ABOUT THEIR RIGHTS AND THE ECHR

🚨ATTENTION!🚨 🚨ATTENTION!🚨 🚨ATTENTION!🚨 Once more the Tories (through Rishi and Truss) are threatening to leave the European Court of Human Rights because it blocks their disgusting and inhumane want to send victims of war and torture to Rwanda. Anyone and everyone who cares about their rights and ECHR and should be rightly scared about this. If you’re a UK resident, please sign and spread this petition around. We've got 30 hours left to get this signed. Our rights and the rights of the future generations after us depends on it. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/607712

A British bill of rights? This draconian plan is a rights removal bill

From the article:

'The Ministry of Justice has taken a hatchet to the single most powerful rights tool this country has ever had. Yet its press release announcing the bill suggests this is somehow good news for us all. Suspend your disbelief, but apparently “watering down” the Human Rights Act will in some way equate to an “expansion” of the right to freedom of expression. The MoJ cites journalists and their right to protect sources, suggesting this will be a valuable new protection. In fact, just a few months ago the journalist and former MP Chris Mullen relied on the Human Rights Act for precisely this purpose in an important press freedom case.

Believing that we are set to gain rights through this legislation requires serious mental acrobatics. The bill takes particular aim at “positive obligations”. These are the obligations that apply to public authorities and make it incumbent on them to take positive steps to protect people’s rights rather than merely restrain themselves from violating them. Positive rights are a vital tool that allows victims to hold the police accountable for serious failures in rape case investigations, for example, such as the appallingly mishandled case of the serial rapist John Worboys.

Repeated failings in the way that police and prosecution authorities investigate endemic violence against women has prompted a crisis of public confidence – yet Raab is now reducing victims’ rights to hold the authorities to account.

Positive obligations are also integral to the ability to secure effective public inquiries into deaths where the state may be responsible, such as the long-delayed Covid inquiry. It’s no coincidence, you might think, that the very politicians the Human Rights Act potentially holds to account might want to see it removed and replaced with this ersatz version.

If the government thinks that taking away the rights of ordinary people in this country with the stroke of a pen will be popular, it is mistaken. In a recent poll commissioned by Amnesty, almost three-quarters of respondents (73%) said they thought it was important to keep the Human Rights Act as a vital tool to hold the government to account when things go wrong. And by wrong, I mean terrible, avoidable disasters such as the Hillsborough tragedy, or the woeful handling of the Covid pandemic.

This is not just a domestic matter. Our poll showed that the horrors of Ukraine have highlighted the value of basic human rights to almost everyone in this country. Four out of five (79%) people said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had made it especially important that countries such as the UK uphold human rights, and almost two-thirds (65%) said they thought reducing human rights protections at home would negatively impact Britain’s ability to stand up for human rights on the global stage.

It gets worse. As the government has been warned repeatedly, any significant change to the Human Rights Act could constitute a breach of the Good Friday agreement, upsetting a delicate balance of peace.

Our government is increasingly resistant to legal scrutiny. After last week’s Rwanda refugee flight was halted, we witnessed the kind of bitter sniping about the European court of human rights that could have come straight from Viktor Orbán or Vladimir Putin. The UK is now throwing its toys out of the pram. Yet the European court of human rights in Strasbourg is an invaluable last resort to millions. Indeed, lawyers acting for British national PoWs who have been sentenced to death in Ukraine may turn to this court for recourse.'

UK condemns EU court's decision to block Rwanda deportation

UK condemns EU court’s decision to block Rwanda deportation

UK condemns EU court’s decision to block Rwanda deportation (more…)

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It’s time to finish the work of Brexit, and finally bring control back to our sovereign Parliament

Britain cannot now remain under the European Court of Human Rights. In their partisan fervour, the blue-robed judges have forced our hand. Their demand that Switzerland adopt more aggressive net zero policies is so partial, so at odds with any sensible reading of the text of the European Convention and so incompatible with representative government that it leaves us (and every other…

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hiiiii good news!!! so today the european court of human rights found that Switzerland has violeted human rights by not doing their part in preventing the climate crisis! This is huge!!!