An international court has, for the first time, ruled that a country violated human rights by not protecting people from the effects of climate change. A Swiss association representing more than 2,000 older women (a third of whom are over the age of 75) filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights saying that their government put them at heightened risk during heatwaves.

The court decided that the European Convention on Human Rights “encompasses a right for individuals to effective protection by the State authorities from the serious adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health, well-being and quality of life.” Swiss authorities violated the Convention, the court says in its judgment, by failing to adequately limit greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels that are causing climate change.

The decision sets a precedent that could empower other plaintiffs seeking to hold their governments accountable for pollution that exacerbates all kinds of disasters — from heatwaves to fires, floods, and droughts.

“We expect this ruling to influence climate action and climate litigation across Europe and far beyond,” Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) senior attorney Joie Chowdhury said in a statement. “The ruling reinforces the vital role of courts — both international and domestic — in holding governments to their legal obligations to protect human rights from environmental harm.”

The plaintiffs sought to hold officials legally accountable for meeting a goal set in the Paris climate accord, in which countries agreed to try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial era. To reach that goal, global greenhouse gas emissions need to fall all the way down to net zero over the next couple of decades or so, according to research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The world is already close to exceeding 1.5 degrees of warming. 2023 was officially the hottest year on record. Deadly heatwaves that spread across Europe, North America, and China last year would have been “extremely rare or even impossible without human-caused warming,” an international collaboration of researchers called World Weather Attribution found. 

Climate change is making heatwaves more intense and frequent, and heatwaves pose greater risks to older adults, like the plaintiffs in this landmark suit. Older adults are more likely to have a chronic medical condition or take prescription medicines that affect the body’s ability to regulate temperature. Women have also been found to face disproportionate impacts from climate-related disasters, which intensify gender-based violence and existing disparities in access to resources.

The European Court of Human Rights also decided on two other climate cases today. A group of youth from Portugal and a former mayor from France filed similar complaints alleging that governments across Europe infringed on their rights by taking insufficient action to curb the pollution warming the planet. The court dismissed both cases over procedural issues.

In the Swiss case, the court left it up to Swiss authorities to craft their own measures to take greater action on climate change. “In the light of the complexity and the nature of the issues involved, the court found that it could not be detailed or prescriptive as regards any measures to be implemented in order to effectively comply with the present judgment,” it said. The judgment notes, however, that Switzerland has already failed to meet previous reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

Moving forward, future climate suits around the world can now point to the Swiss plaintiffs’ case as a legal precedent upholding states’ responsibility to stop climate change — especially as it poses growing threats to communities already facing inequities.

“Strategic litigation can help to deliver climate justice and protect the rights of billions from global warming, especially the most marginalized, and will yield benefits – as we have witnessed today with the Swiss case,” Mandi Mudarikwa, Amnesty International’s head of strategic litigation, said in a statement.