The ECHR and Climate Action Through Switzerland—A Global Signal

Introductory Note to the Publication Author: Niccolò Salvioni, Locarno, Switzerland Original date of publication: April 10, 2024 — the day after the ruling Temporal context: This article is one of the first analyses in Italian of the judgment in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz et al. v. Switzerland, written in the immediate aftermath of the decision, when the ruling of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (delivered on April 9, 2024) had not yet been commented on by legal scholars or incorporated into the political and institutional debate in Ticino and at the federal level. It should therefore be read as a direct and contemporary account of the judgment’s impact, predating both the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of July 23, 2025, and the subsequent UN General Assembly resolution of 2026 that reinforced its political significance—developments that, more than two years later, confirm the forward-looking interpretation proposed in the article, particularly regarding the possible international “domino effect.” Summary of Content The article provides an analytical account of the judgment in which, on April 9, 2024, the Grand Chamber of the ECHR ordered the Swiss Confederation to pay 80,000 euros to the Zurich Association of Elderly Women for Climate Action for violating Articles 8 (private and family life) and 6 (fair trial) of the Convention. Chronology of the Dispute — The text traces the eight-year process: from the 2016 request to federal authorities (Federal Council, DATEC, UFAM, UFE), through the rejections by the Federal Administrative Court (2018) and the Federal Supreme Court (2020), to the appeal filed in Strasbourg in 2020 and the final decision in 2024. The Merits of the Decision — The key passages of the judgment (286 pages) are highlighted: the Court acknowledges that climate change poses a concrete threat to the rights guaranteed by the Convention, but carefully delineates its jurisdiction in relation to legislative and executive powers. It also acknowledges the specific characteristics of climate-related harm compared to “classic” environmental harm (diffuse and untraceable source, unpredictable effects, systemic nature), and from this derives the positive obligation for States to adopt a binding regulatory framework aimed at carbon neutrality, with verifiable intermediate targets (§§544–550). The critical limitations identified by the author — The article goes beyond a mere legal report to offer an independent critical analysis on four levels: • The disproportion between the gravity of the issue and the modest financial penalty (80,000 euros), raising questions about the actual deterrent effect of ECHR sanctions. • The limited enforceability of the judgment, acknowledged by the Court itself under Article 46 of the ECHR, which leaves the choice of enforcement measures to the Committee of Ministers and the respondent State. • The paradox of “Switzerland: a small state, a large penalty”: a small country is sanctioned while major emitting powers remain outside similar accountability mechanisms. • The risk of conflict with the principle of separation of powers, with possible challenges to legitimacy and the precedent of Russia’s withdrawal from the Convention serving as a warning. An Original Projection — The article concludes with a personal doctrinal hypothesis proposed by the author: the extension of the Court’s reasoning (Articles 6 and 8 of the ECHR) to acts or omissions of war that cause serious environmental damage, opening the door to the possible legal classification of wartime “ecocide” as a violation of the Convention—a foresight that engages directly with the subsequent international debate on environmental crimes and armed conflicts. Relevance for Today’s Reader More than two years after the ruling, the article remains a useful point of reference for gauging the gap between the theoretical assertion of the right to climate protection and its actual legislative implementation in Switzerland—an issue that remains at the center of the debate today, reinforced but not resolved by the subsequent opinion from The Hague.

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