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EVOLUTION OF THE PROTECTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS AT THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Liudmyla Golovko, Olena Hulak, Iryna Andrushko, Taras Pantaliienko, S. Chernik

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to provide a legal analysis of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the field of protection of environmental human rights from the point of view of the following key aspects: severity threshold, degree of discretion, positive obligations of states. Special attention was paid to the latest case of Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz and others v. Switzerland. On April 9, 2024, the ECtHR for the first time upheld a complaint in a climate change case. This is the first time when an international court has ruled on issues related to climate change, although there have been precedents at the national level. The ECtHR's decision can be seen as a vivid example when an individual can legally enforce an international convention (in this case, primarily the Paris Agreement on climate change). The article focuses on the main key aspects of this decision, such as the admissibility of the complaint, the content of the state's obligations in the climate sphere, in accordance with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the degree of discretion, the assessment of the measures taken by Switzerland in the field of climate change prevention. The positive sides of the court decision were identified, which are the direct application of the norms of international climate law, overcoming the doctrine of action popularis by recognizing the right of NGOs to file lawsuits in climate cases and an attempt to define the positive obligations of states in the context of preventing climate change. The disadvantage of the decision, in our opinion, is that these positive obligations of states are not defined in sufficient detail. It is concluded that the decision of the ECtHR in the Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz case may lead to an increase in the number of complaints submitted by the member states of the Council of Europe to this court in connection with the unsatisfactory fulfillment by the states of their international obligations in the field of combating climate change, and may force states to accelerate reductions in fossil fuel consumption and improve their national environmental legislation. Despite the absence of any rule of binding precedent in international law, the decision of the ECtHR in the Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz case may have an impact on the decisions of other international judicial and quasi-judicial bodies in climate change cases. During the writing of the article, general theoretical methods of scientific research were used: system-functional method, analysis and synthesis, theoretical generalization.

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