Climate change is not a matter for human rights law

We have debated for years whether Britain’s continued membership of the European Court of Human Rights threatens our national security. This ruling means that it will threaten our prosperity and democracy as well. 

The ECHR has said that climate change policy is a human rights matter. The Court ruled that Switzerland – a signatory, like the United Kingdom – had ‘failed to comply with its duties under the Convention concerning climate change’ and that it had violated the right to respect for private and family life. This ruling followed a case brought by a group of elderly Swiss women, who claimed that the Swiss government’s supposed failure to tackle climate change threatened their human rights. 

Claimants alleged that thanks to heatwaves, they need to organise their lives around a weather forecast, and this was a violation of their human rights. The Court agreed. By deciding that the potential health implications of one nation’s own climate policies – Switzerland itself is responsible for a tiny fraction of global emissions – is a human rights matter, the Court has potentially expanded the remit of human rights over the entirety of social and economic policy.