{"id":29400,"date":"2026-07-28T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T07:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/?p=29400"},"modified":"2026-07-28T16:29:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:29:29","slug":"adaptation-and-victim-status-in-ecthr-climate-litigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/adaptation-and-victim-status-in-ecthr-climate-litigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Adaptation and Victim Status in ECtHR Climate Litigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since 2020, 23 applications<\/u><\/a> concerning climate change have been made to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).\u00a0The ECtHR delivered its first <\/u>climate decisions<\/em><\/u> on April 9, 2024<\/u><\/a>, when the Grand Chamber gave a controversial and groundbreaking\u00a0260-page judgment in\u00a0Verein <\/em><\/u>Klimaseniorinnen<\/em><\/u> Schweiz and Others v Switzerland\u00a0(\u201c<\/em><\/u>KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em><\/u>\u201d)<\/em><\/u><\/a>. The approach adopted by the ECtHR in these cases was extensively discussed among the scholarship, giving ground to hundreds of papers and disputes within academia, including\u00a0this blog symposium<\/u><\/a>. Some of the most discussed\u00a0aspects of the decisions made by the ECtHR, and particularly KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>,<\/em>\u00a0were\u00a0causation<\/u><\/a>, victim<\/u><\/a>\u00a0status<\/u><\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0extraterritoriality<\/u><\/a>. Also,\u00a0after the Advisory Opinions rendered by the International Court of Justice<\/u><\/a> (ICJ) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights<\/u><\/a> (IACtHR), other<\/u><\/a>\u00a0climate <\/u>case<\/u>s<\/u><\/a>\u00a0were treated by the Court of Strasbourg, finding no violations of the rights and freedoms protected by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).<\/p>\n

Primarily, the\u00a0victim status argumentation provoked several different<\/u><\/a>\u00a0reactions<\/u><\/a> from authors throughout the world. This blog post aims to\u00a0analyse\u00a0one of the less argued points, which revolves around the role of adaptation and adaptability in\u00a0determining victimhood, by exploring the possible outcomes of the currently pending cases before the ECtHR, with a specific focus on\u00a0the\u00a0application challenging the United Kingdom<\/u>\u2019s insufficient adaptation programme before the ECtHR.<\/p>\n

Adaptation in <\/strong>KlimaSeniorinnen<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>, the first climate case judged by the ECtHR, has widely influenced<\/u><\/a> the debate around climate change and human rights within and beyond Europe, becoming a pivotal case in international jurisprudence.\u00a0<\/em>The case, brought by an\u00a0association of elderly women, alleged various omissions by\u00a0the Swiss authorities in the area of climate\u2011change mitigation, relying on Articles 2, 6, 8 and 13 of the Convention. The ECtHR found Switzerland responsible for the violation of Article 6(1) and Article 8 of the Convention.<\/p>\n

The judgment came as a result of detailed legal reasoning in which the Court explained which measures States need to take to tackle climate change, including mitigation and adaptation measures, which are States\u2019 obligations according to the Paris Agreement<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ECtHR stated that individual applicants, to be considered as victims\u00a0under Article 34 of the ECHR<\/u><\/a>, are supposed to demonstrate a relationship between State actions or omissions and the harm affecting them (para. 478). In doing so, the ECtHR underlined that the applicants, in order to claim victim status, must be subject to a high intensity of exposure to the adverse effects of climate change and a pressing need to ensure the applicant\u2019s individual protection owing to the absence or inadequacy of any reasonable measures\u00a0to reduce harm, emphasizing that the threshold for fulfilling these criteria is especially high, and that the Court will have due regard particular circumstances such as local conditions, individual specificities and vulnerabilities (para. 487-488).\u00a0In this framework, the ECtHR puts the spotlight on \u201creasonable measures to reduce harms\u201d when estimating individual applications, stressing that none of the individual applicants were\u00a0suffering from \u201cany critical medical condition whose possible aggravation linked to heatwaves could not be alleviated by the adaptation measures available in Switzerland or by means of reasonable measures of personal adaptation\u201d<\/strong> (para. 533).\u00a0As a reminder, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change<\/u><\/a> (IPCC), adaptation is \u201cthe process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects, to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities\u201d and human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects<\/u><\/a>, including by reducing the risks<\/u><\/a> associated with increasingly severe natural hazards, which may develop into disasters<\/u><\/a> where adequate preventive and responsive measures are lacking.<\/p>\n

Hence, this approach appears to suggest that the State\u2019s positive obligations may not be claimable where individuals can rely on \u201creasonable measures of personal adaptation\u201d, which are framed almost as alternative measures\u00a0to be exhausted before State responsibility, and a consequent violation of the Convention, can be established.<\/p>\n

Adaptation <\/strong>L<\/strong>egitimacy <\/strong>in the ICJ Advisory Opinion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Further support for the ECtHR\u2019s interpretation of States\u2019 positive obligations may be drawn from the ICJ\u2019s 2025 advisory opinion about obligations of States in respect of climate change, which, in a different legal context, recalled that adaptation measures constitute international legal obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change<\/u><\/a>\u00a0(UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement, as set out in different provisions of those treaties. The ICJ considered that the fulfilment of adaptation obligations of parties needs to be assessed against a standard of due diligence, making it incumbent upon parties to enact appropriate measures that are capable of \u201cenhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change\u201d, such as provided by Article 7.9 of the Paris Agreement (para. 258), among which are weatherproofing of buildings and land management. The ICJ observes that the adaptation obligations under the Paris Agreement complement mitigation obligations in preventing and reducing the harmful consequences of climate change (para. 259), underlining the importance of Article 7. In addition to that, the ICJ underscores that, to comply with the Paris Agreement and with the adaptation obligations deriving from its Article 4, all parties must take measures that make an adequate contribution to achieving the collective temperature goal, reflected in parties\u2019 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in line with due diligence obligations<\/u><\/a> (para. 270).<\/p>\n

Finally, the ICJ reinforced the connection existing between climate change and human rights and highlighted that States must protect the climate and environment so people can fully enjoy their human rights, by taking inter alia<\/em> adaptation measures, with due account given to the protection of human rights and to take necessary measures in this regard under international human rights law (para. 403).<\/p>\n

KlimaSeniorinnen<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>as a <\/strong>P<\/strong>aradigm<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ECtHR has been fully convinced in pursuing the victim status test adopted\u00a0in KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>\u00a0in deciding the other complaints brought before the Court of Strasbourg in the following months, as demonstrated, for instance, by Engels and others v. Germany<\/em><\/u><\/a>, Fliegenschnee and <\/em><\/u>o<\/em><\/u>thers <\/em><\/u>v.<\/em><\/u> Austria<\/em><\/u><\/a>\u00a0and Greenpeace Nordic and others v. Norway<\/em><\/u><\/a>,\u00a0in which the applicants saw their application rejected for the same reasons illustrated in KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>. The Court found that the applicants had failed to demonstrate specific vulnerabilities or\u00a0that exceptional circumstances existed in relation to climate change that could not be alleviated by adaptation measures of the respective country or by means of reasonable individual adaptation, by also citing para.\u00a0533 of KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>. In the same way, Uricchio v. Italy and 31 others<\/em><\/u><\/a> and De Conto v. Italy<\/em><\/u><\/a>\u00a0and 32 others<\/em><\/u><\/a>, were considered incompatible\u00a0ratione personae<\/em> with the provisions of Article 35(3) of the ECHR, by relying upon para. 533 of KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Testing the <\/strong>KlimaSeniorinnen<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Threshold<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although the\u00a0two-fold criterion set by the ECtHR to assess victimhood in KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>\u00a0has become the model to follow for climate cases in Strasbourg, the judgment does not necessarily establish a fixed or immutable pattern. Many hopes<\/u><\/a> and expectations<\/u><\/a> have been pinned on M\u00fcllner v. Austria<\/em><\/u><\/a>, where the applicant suffers from a highly sensitive heat syndrome because of which he is constrained<\/u><\/a> to a wheelchair when temperatures rise, which will (hopefully) soon be heard in court thanks to the application of Rule 41<\/u><\/a> of the Rules of the ECtHR.\u00a0Even though the excitement surrounding M\u00fcllner<\/em> is understandable, Austria may have a solid basis for contesting responsibility and any finding of a human-rights violation. Under the Bosphorus d<\/em><\/u>o<\/em><\/u>ctrine<\/em><\/u><\/a>, a State is presumed to comply<\/u><\/a>\u00a0with the ECHR when, without exercising discretion, it implements binding obligations arising from membership in an international organisation that affords equivalent fundamental-rights protection. As an EU Member State acting in compliance with EU law, Austria may therefore seek to rely on that presumption.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, another case has the potential to shape a new avenue for climate litigation before the ECtHR. In July 2025, Friends of the Earth UK and others submitted an application against the United Kingdom before the ECtHR. Alongside Friends of the Earth, Doug Paulley and Kevin Jordan argue that their lives have been ruined by the rising temperatures and\u00a0extreme weather caused by the climate crisis, and that the UK government\u2019s response fails to respect their human rights, protected by Articles 2, 8, and Article 1 of Protocol 1 (read with Article 14) ECHR. Against this backdrop, Paulley represents a case similar to M\u00fcllner<\/em>, having multiple disabilities exacerbated by rising temperatures, while Jordan saw his seaside home being demolished after severe storms and rising sea levels put it at risk of being washed away; therefore, he argues that the UK\u2019s approach to the changing climate is flawed.<\/p>\n

The case is extremely interesting because the applicants argue<\/u><\/a> that the UK\u2019s national adaptation programme (NAP) was insufficient, and that this non-compliance caused<\/u><\/a> a violation of their human rights. The applicants argue that the UK\u2019s NAP failed to consider the impact of climate change on marginalised groups, set out lawful \u201cadaptation objectives\u201d or adequately assess risks to the delivery of its plans.<\/p>\n

The case was rejected by the English High Court in 2024, and the Court of Appeal refused the applicants\u2019 application to challenge the ruling. However, in 2025, the English Climate Change Committee<\/u><\/a>, the UK\u2019s statutory climate watchdog, publicly declared that the \u201cvast majority\u201d of the UK government\u2019s plans to prepare for climate hazards have made virtually no progress<\/u><\/a> over the past years, underlining that adaptation implementation remains\u00a0inadequate in the UK<\/u><\/a> and needs to become a priority for the UK government, bolstering the application before the ECtHR and making clear that the UK is not complying with its international obligations.<\/p>\n

Therefore, since\u00a0KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>imposed that Article 2 requires a \u201creal and imminent\u201d risk to life sufficiently ascertainable in terms of material and temporal proximity to apply in a climate-change context (para. 513), and Article 8 encompasses a right for individuals to effective protection by the State authorities from serious adverse effects of climate change on their life, health, well-being and quality of life (para. 519), it would seem that both\u00a0Jordan and Paulley\u00a0have the potential to\u00a0fulfil the criteria set out by the ECtHR in terms of climate victim status.<\/p>\n

Conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ECtHR has relied so heavily on the KlimaSeniorinnen<\/em>\u00a0victim status test that its \u201cespecially high\u201d threshold risks becoming almost impossible to meet. Yet, as Rundel<\/u><\/a> argues, the \u201cpersonal adaptation\u201d burden of proof can be leveraged to assess the first<\/em> victims of climate change before the ECtHR.<\/p>\n

A concrete way to demonstrate that personal adaptation is no longer possible is to claim that the respondent State\u2019s NAP has not been properly implemented, has failed<\/u><\/a> to take adaptation measures, and is unable to protect its citizens\u2019 human rights. It should also not be forgotten that the only individual climate victims identified so far by an international human rights body, in Billy v. Australia<\/em><\/u><\/a> before the UN Human Rights Committee, were recognised as such after the Committee found that the respondent State had failed \u201cto discharge its positive obligation to implement adequate adaptation measures to protect the authors’ home, private life and family rights\u201d (para 8.12).<\/p>\n

To conclude, as suggested by part of the s<\/u>c<\/u>holarship<\/u><\/a>, finding an individual, at least in a strict legal sense, as a victim of a State\u2019s failure to mitigate climate change, is extremely challenging, if not impossible<\/u><\/a>, considering\u00a0the hurdles<\/u><\/a> in proving a direct and proximate causal relation between a failure to mitigate climate change and an individual harm.\u00a0Of course, adaptation and mitigation obligations must be both implemented and run in the same direction, and shall not be considered as alternative measures. Nonetheless, as adaptation cases gain momentum<\/u><\/a>, and since a causal relationship between wrongful conduct and harm may be demonstrated through scientific evidence<\/u><\/a> and the\u00a0tangible consequences suffered by individuals, there may be victims of dis-adaptation,\u00a0as illustrated by the case brought against the UK. As mentioned above, the ECtHR case-law has identified the impossibility of adapting to climate change as the final stage to be overcome before a person can claim a violation of human rights and be identified as a victim.<\/p>\n

Is the Court of Strasbourg ready to accept its own conditions?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since 2020, 23 applications concerning climate change have been made to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).\u00a0The ECtHR delivered its first climate decisions on April 9, 2024, when the Grand Chamber gave a controversial and groundbreaking\u00a0260-page judgment in\u00a0Verein Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz and Others v Switzerland\u00a0(\u201cKlimaSeniorinnen\u201d). The approach adopted by the ECtHR in these cases was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6639],"tags":[3792,3782,7055],"authors":[8074],"article-categories":[6000],"doi":[],"class_list":["post-29400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-climate-change","tag-ecthr","tag-litigation","authors-valerio-sinaj","article-categories-article"],"acf":{"subline":"Climate Adaptation Enters the Strasbourg Debate"},"meta_box":{"doi":"10.17176\/20260728-144801-0"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29400"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29407,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29400\/revisions\/29407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29400"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=29400"},{"taxonomy":"article-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-categories?post=29400"},{"taxonomy":"doi","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doi?post=29400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}