Senior Women demanding: “Protect our human rights in the face of the climate crisis!”

The climate crisis is not remote. It already threatens lives and health globally for people in vulnerable situations. States still fail to take ambitious actions to safeguard human rights. More and more people are therefore turning to the courts for protection. 

Senior Women suffer especially from increasing and more intense heat waves. They don’t have time to waste. In Switzerland, they formed an association to take their state to court for doing too little to prevent climate change. After exhausting all national options, they applied to the European Court of Human Rights, whose 17-Judge Grand Chamber will hear its first-ever climate case on 29 March 2023. The Senior Women say Switzerland must do its share to keep global heating below 1.5ºC. They call the ECtHR for protection of their human rights in the context of climate change. The decision by the ECtHR will ultimately be a legal precedent establishing States’ human rights obligations in the context of climate change. This judgment will create a worldwide impact.