It was immediately evident that the European Court of Human Rights judgment in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland was groundbreaking in multiple regards and will prove fundamentally important in terms of shaping and, in many ways, advancing climate justice litigation at the European, international and domestic law levels. That decision, as well as those in Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others and the Carême v. France have already been discussed extensively (see here, here and here). As such, this post focuses on one element of that decision: namely the issue of future generations and intergenerational equity. It argues that in KilmaSeniorinnen, the Court pushed forward its work in this area very significantly, reflecting a strong awareness of the inter-generational aspects of climate change and efforts to address such, as well the disadvantaged position of democratically marginalised groups vis-a-vis contemporary democratic decision-making on these matters. Intergenerational equity and future generations during the litigation process On the one…
Right to Life
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The Mariupol Test: Analysing the Briefs of Third States Intervening in Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia
The interstate case of Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia is currently pending on its merits before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights. It is one of the most complex and politically momentous cases ever to be heard by the Court. Russia is no longer participating in the proceedings, and will not comply with…
Life & Death, an Unstable Scale: The European Court of Human Rights Approach to Euthanasia in Mortier v. Belgium
On 4 October 2022, the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) issued a Chamber judgment in the case of Mortier v. Belgium. This landmark ruling is the first-ever ruling of the ECtHR on the compliance of euthanasia, once performed, with the rights protected under the European Convention of Human Rights (“ECHR”). Additionally,…
Targeted Killings: New Allegations Against India and Ukraine
Yesterday, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, stood up in Parliament and formally accused the government of India of committing a targeted killing on Canadian territory. The victim, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was a prominent leader of a Sikh separatist movement in India, who was designated as a terrorist by the Indian government. He was assassinated…
Amicus Curiae Brief in Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia
The European Court of Human Rights recently joined two major interstate cases pending before it – the interstate case filed by Ukraine and the Netherlands against Russia that concerned the downing of the MH17 airliner and events in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, which it declared admissible in January, with the new interstate application filed by Ukraine…