Will the Swiss Grandmas Travel the World?

Article

Will the Swiss Grandmas Travel the World?

12.05.2025

Liz Hicks Hannah Leoni Stahl Aylin Yildiz Noorda

Anticipation has run high for what some call the of the KlimaSeniorinnen ruling delivered on 9 April 2024. While it is too early to definitively assess the KlimaSeniorinnen ruling’s impact...

Article

Forgotten Crisis in a World in Turmoil

15.04.2025

Mette-Luise Hellerich

While many in Europe are focused on the Russo-Ukrainian War, or perhaps on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and eroding transatlantic relations, one major contemporary issue has been left out of public...

Article

EU Deforestation-Free Regulations

13.03.2025

Samriddhi Guha

On the island of Borneo, Malaysia, palm trees stretch as far as the eye can see. Malaysia is the world’s second largest palm oil producer after Indonesia. However, the European...

Symposium
Women in International Law Vol. 4

Gender, Climate, and the Illusion of Neutrality

05.03.2025

Dilruba Begüm Kartepe Mariia Zheltukha

This blog post examines the stance of the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’, ‘the Court’) in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland through a gender lens, questioning whether...

Symposium
Women in International Law Vol. 4

Though They Be But Little, They Are Fierce!

05.03.2025

Alana Malinde S.N. Lancaster

As a wicked problem (Rittel and Webber, 1973; Conradie, 2020), climate change is confirmed as the most pernicious of the triad of planetary crises experienced in the Anthropocene. An emergency...

Symposium
Rights of Nature: Obstacles and Challenges

Rights of Nature Through the History of Problematizations

26.02.2025

Nils Richterich

In 2022, the Spanish saltwater lagoon Mar Menor became the first ecosystem in Europe to be granted rights of nature. This widely celebrated success, which allows this ecosystem the “right...

Symposium
Rights of Nature: Obstacles and Challenges

“Nature […] is Always Right”

25.02.2025

Camilla S. Haake

In recent years, the notion of “human interconnectedness” with the “non-human world” led to several legislative initiatives and court decisions granting legal subjectivity to nature and/or recognizing inherent “Rights of...

Symposium
Rights of Nature: Obstacles and Challenges

Revolution of Rights, Rethinking of Freedom

24.02.2025

Franca Emilia Lorber

The debate on inherent rights of nature (RoN) is no longer uncharted domain. What initially emerged as a theoretical concept in the 1970s through the work of Christopher Stone, who...

Article

The ECT’s Long Road to Modernisation

19.12.2024

Johannes Tropper

On 3 December 2024, the Energy Charter Conference (ECC) adopted the amendments to modernise the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). It was concluded in the 1990s mainly to protect energy investments,...

Article

Climate of Justice

12.12.2024

Abhijeet Shrivastava Aastha Kapoor

Increasingly, litigants recognize the strategic and discursive utility of using human rights proceedings in the fight against climate change. One of the key issues here is the pursuit of remedies...

Article

The ITLOS Advisory Opinion on Climate Change

11.12.2024

Laisa Branco de Almeida Julia Cirne Lima Weston

On 12 December 2022, the Commission of Small Island States (COSIS) submitted a request for an advisory opinion to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS or...

Interview
Symposium
Climate Change Conference COP29

Climate Governance and the Energy Transition: Lessons from COP29

28.11.2024

Christoph Bertram Justine Batura

Dear Christoph, welcome to Völkerrechtsblog! We are delighted to have you join us for this interview. To begin, let’s delve into the realm of international climate governance. In terms of...

Interview
Symposium
Climate Change Conference COP29

Climate Justice or Market Expansion? Unpacking COP29’s Financing Decisions

28.11.2024

Bertha Iris Argueta Tejeda Justine Batura

Dear Bertha, welcome to Völkerrechtsblog. Thanks for agreeing to take the time to answer our questions so thoroughly. How do you assess the commitment of the states – particularly the...

Interview
Symposium
Climate Change Conference COP29

Missed Opportunities in a Microcosm of Broader Challenges

27.11.2024

Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh Khaled El Mahmoud

Dear Margaretha, a very warm welcome back! I believe that the overall sentiment among all of us was one of ambitious expectations for the outcomes of COP29, accompanied by a...

Symposium
Climate Change Conference COP29

Reversing Emissions

15.11.2024

Tony Cabus

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is an activity that consists in removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere to durably store it in geological, terrestrial, or ocean reservoirs or in products...

Symposium
Climate Change Conference COP29

Carbon Capture, Storage and Removal

15.11.2024

Lena Wammer Østgaard

To meet the climate targets of the Paris Agreement, fossil fuel use must be phased out. However, oil, gas, and coal remain primary energy sources for many countries and will...

Symposium
Climate Change Conference COP29

Litigating Corporate Responsibility for Climate-Related Loss and Damage

14.11.2024

Theresa Mockel Johannes Wendland

Every time damage occurs, the simple question arises: Who should pay for it? For lawyers, the answer is frequently found in the time-tested principles of tort law. It is widely...

Symposium
Climate Change Conference COP29

Addressing Loss and Damage at COP29 and Beyond

13.11.2024

Adrián Martínez Blanco Patrick Toussaint

In recent years, loss and damage (L&D) has shifted from the margins into the spotlight of multilateral negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A key...

Symposium
Climate Change Conference COP29

Reassessing Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities

12.11.2024

Valerie Fajardo Alyssa Huffman Lorena Zenteno Villa

The Principle of ‘Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities’ (CBDR-RC) holds all states responsible for addressing human-driven climate change and environmental destruction but acknowledges that some states have historically...

Interview
Symposium
Climate Change Conference COP29

Setting the Scene for COP29

11.11.2024

Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh Khaled El Mahmoud

Dear Margaretha, we would like to express our gratitude for accepting our invitation and for agreeing to this interview. We are delighted to have the opportunity to engage in discourse...

Symposium
Climate Change Conference COP29

Climate Diplomacy in an Era of Permacrisis

11.11.2024

Justine Batura Khaled El Mahmoud

Humanity is facing in an era marked by turbulence, uncertainty, and instability. Increasingly referred to as a permacrisis, this period is defined by a series of complex and interconnected crises...

Article

Bilateral Investment Treaties as a Tool for Global Climate Governance?

11.09.2024

Alistair Lieser

International Investment Law (IIL) has long been understood as counterproductive to adopting effective climate change policy. As IIL aims for predictable investment protection, International Climate Change Law (ICCL) requires flexibility...

Article

Is It Time?

10.09.2024

Paulina Rundel

While the UN and almost every region around the world have explicitly recognized the right to a healthy environment, there is one region that still lacks this right: Europe. But...

Media

Saving the Climate in Strasbourg? – A Critical Look at the European Court of Human Rights’ Climate Cases

07.07.2024

Marko Milanovic

On 9th April 2024, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights issued decisions in three significant climate change cases. In this edition of the Current Issues in...

Media

The ITLOS Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and the Law of the Sea – What follows from the Qualification of GHG Emissions as Marine Pollution?

10.06.2024

Nele Matz-Lück

The ITLOS Advisory Opinion on Climate Change and the Law of the Sea from 21 May 2024 is a landmark decision. Not only does the ITLOS define GHG emissions from...

Article

ECtHR Favours 1.5-Degree Limit

05.06.2024

Felix Ekardt

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled in Verein Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland that the protection of life and health under Article 8 ECHR against climate...

Article

Racialised Climate Justice

01.06.2024

Jens T. Theilen

9 April 2024 was a big day for international lawyers. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rendered judgment in three major climate change cases. One of these much-anticipated decisions,...

Book Review
Symposium
Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: Within and Beyond Boundaries

Climate Change and Positive Obligations in the ECHR

29.05.2024

Lea Raible

Stoyanova’s book, Positive Obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: Within and Beyond Boundaries, rigorously analyses positive obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), proposing a characterisation...

Article

The A Sud v. Italy Case after the KlimaSeniorinnen Judgment

24.05.2024

Federica Cittadino

Just as climate litigation is on the rise globally, increasingly more climate cases are brought before Italian courts. On February 26, 2024, the Civil Tribunal of Rome has rendered its...

Bofaxe

Klimaklagen

06.05.2024

Joel Bella

„Klimaschutz jetzt Menschenrecht“. So formuliert es ein Kommentar in dem bekannten deutschen Rechtsmagazin LTO. Und das beschreibt tatsächlich ziemlich genau das, was der Europäische Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte (EGMR) am 09....

Article

Resisting the Allure of Future Generations’ Rights

19.04.2024

Luísa Netto

On 9 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered much-anticipated judgments in three emblematic climate change cases: Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and others v. Switzerland, Carême v. France,...

Bofaxe

How Do You Like Your Coffee? Green!

23.02.2024

Vivien Wefringhaus

More than two billion cups – that is the global amount of coffee we are consuming every day. Notwithstanding its value as a culinary treat and a remedy for staying...

Article

Back to the Future: Viewing Emerging Climate Risk Through a Precautionary Lens

26.10.2023

Naimeh Masumy Amanda J. Lee

This piece explores the utility of the precautionary principle as a tool available to investment tribunals tasked with assessing measures adopted by States to address climate-related risks. To date, little...

Article

Bridging Jurisprudence and Ecology

25.10.2023

Rafsi Albar

Earlier this year, the United Nations General Assembly filed a request for an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice following the adoption resolution on 29 March. The request...

Article

The Stateless Paradox

23.10.2023

Sebastian Losch

Climate change poses many challenges for International Law. One issue that has become the subject of much discussion in both academic discourse and in political practice is the unique situation...

Article

Why a Court Alone Won’t Bring Us to Heaven

12.10.2023

Julian A. Hettihewa

On 27 September 2023, the case of Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others (no. 39371/20) was heard by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human...

Article

Children as Agents of Change

05.10.2023

Stephan Gerbig

The Committee on the Rights of the Child (Committee) has recently published its new General Comment No. 26 (GC26) on Children’s rights and the environment with a special focus on...

Symposium
Progress and International Law: A Cursed Relationship?

Towards an (Im)possible Polis: Legal Imagination and State Continuity

20.09.2023

Alex Green

Thomas Baty once quipped that ‘[i]nternational law, it is generally agreed, has something to do with states’. By opening The Canons of International Law in this manner, Baty draws our...

Symposium
Progress and International Law: A Cursed Relationship?

Progress and Linear Time: How to Rethink International Law to Account for Ecologically Precarious Presents?

19.09.2023

Eliana Cusato

We live in the ‘era of global boiling’, says UN Secretary-General Guterres, as July 2023 set to be the hottest month on record. While the ecological conditions of planetary life...

Article

Protecting Human Rights During the Climate Crisis

04.09.2023

Pranav Ganesan Helen Keller

This blogpost was inspired by a question that arose in an international climate case concerning emissions reductions obligations under human rights law. During the oral proceedings of KlimaSeniorinnen and Others...

Bofaxe

International Problems Require International Answers

12.07.2023

Joel Bella Julia Heuwing

This year, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is expected to deal with several climate change cases, through which the complainants seek to hold their countries of origin responsible...

Bofaxe

Sea-Level Rise at the Security Council

08.05.2023

Rouven Diekjobst

In what has been termed a ‘signature event’ of the Maltese Presidency of the United Nations Security Council (the Council), the latter held an open debate on the implications of...

Article

A Court, Not a Policymaker

31.03.2023

Lorenz Wielenga

On Wednesday, under the eyes of great public interest, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) opened a chapter to what may become the ECtHR’s greatest...

Article

Post-COP27 Thoughts on Greening the Cape Town Convention

13.03.2023

Nikolas Klausmann

In June 2022, the governing council of UNIDROIT, a Rome-based intergovernmental organization with the objective to harmonize international private law across countries through uniform rules, discussed proposals for their upcoming...

Article

Rockhopper v. Italy and the Tension between ISDS and Climate Policy

21.12.2022

Paolo Mazzotti

On 23 August 2022, a Tribunal constituted under the auspices of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) handed down a long-awaited Award in the case of Rockhopper v. Italy. The investor’s...

Media

Rising Before Sinking: The Landmark Decision of the UN Human Rights Committee in Daniel Billy et al. v. Australia

21.11.2022

Verena Kahl

In its groundbreaking views on Billy et al. v. Australia the UN Human Rights Committee found that Australia failed to adequately protect members of an indigenous community present in four...

Article

Dealing with Loss and Damage at COP27

18.11.2022

Michael Kronenberger

The fact that the topic of "loss and damage" was placed at the top of the agenda in the run-up to COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh is a climate diplomacy milestone....

Article

Legal and Judicial Responses to Disaster Displacement in Italy, Austria and Sweden

19.10.2022

Chiara Scissa Francesca Biondi Dal Monte Matthew Scott Margit Ammer Monika Mayrhofer

Climate change and the growing climate crisis are expected to force more and more people to leave their homes. EU law and policy, however, do not explicitly address disaster displacement,...

Article

Tiptoeing Around the Right to Life

04.10.2022

Valentin Büchi

When the UN Human Rights Committee published its views on the case of Billy et al. v. Australia (Torres Strait Islanders) on September 23rd 2022, it made history as the...

Article

Intergenerational Justice: From Courtroom to Politics?

29.08.2022

Eline Mensink

How to think long term in a short-term world? This is the question at the heart of Roman Krznaric’ book ‘The Good Ancestor’. Long-term thinking implies taking future generations into...

Article

Germany’s “Fair Share” of Climate Change Jurisprudence

17.05.2021

Philipp Schönberger

Germany has now its own landmark climate case. In its recent decision on the Climate Protection Act (CPA), the Constitutional Court did not follow all of the claimant’s submissions and...

Article

The impacts of climate change on the humanitarian system: towards truly long-term cooperative action

05.03.2021

Laura Kraft

On 1 December 2020, the German Federal Foreign Office hosted one of five virtual launches of the 2021 Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO) in Berlin. The GHO, which is published annually...

Article

Climate migrants – How German courts take the environment into account when considering non-refoulement

03.03.2021

Camilla Schloss

In a recent landmark decision concerning an Afghan national a German Higher Administrative Court declared a ban on deportation (non-refoulement) based on German immigration law in conjunction with international human...

Article

Quand le vin est tiré, il faut le boire

16.02.2021

Liv Christiansen

Ansonsten drohen Konsequenzen, wie sich jetzt in einem Gerichtsverfahren vor dem Tribunal Administratif de Paris (Pariser Verwaltungsgericht) zeigte. 2018 haben sich Oxfam, Notre Affaire à Tous, Fondation pour la Nature et...