The Role of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in Climate Litigation

Josephine Van Zeben*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Climate litigation has become a permanent fixture in the climate law and policy landscape. Across jurisdictions, climate litigation takes different shapes, with actions based on administrative, civil, or criminal law. An increasing number of cases incorporate human rights, leading to courts inter alia imposing more onerous mitigation obligations on governments and private actors in light of human rights provisions. Several landmark cases in this domain have come from European jurisdictions and have been argued with reference to both the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights. An analysis of case law from the European Member States shows that the emerging picture is one of the Charter playing a secondary role to the ECHR. Based on this jurisprudential analysis, this article reflects on the future role of the Charter in climate litigation, and by extension, in shaping environmental human rights.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1499-1510
Number of pages12
JournalGerman Law Journal
Volume22
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Dec 2021

Keywords

  • Climate litigation
  • EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
  • European Convention on Human Rights
  • human rights
  • judicial dialogue

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