‘The Russian climate case’ (application no. 9296/24) was filed on 31 August 2023 at the European Court of Human Rights [‘ECtHR’ or ‘Court’] and brought before the Court by a courageous group of applicants comprising 18 Russian citizens and 2 NGOs – among the few remaining human and environmental rights defenders prepared to challenge the current regime.
Having exhausted all remedies in Russian domestic courts, the case argues climate-based violations of the European Convention on Human Rights [‘ECHR’] under Articles 2 and 8; Article 14 taken in conjunction with Articles 2 and 8 impacting on Indigenous People and young people as well as a violation of Article 13 (based on the application of Russian law in domestic courts which, it is argued, deprived the applicants of an effective remedy). It also presents a powerful argument under Article 34 establishing interference by the state with the applicants’ right to bring this particular case to the Court. Evidentially, it tackles a wide range of issues including Arctic permafrost melt; climate impacts upon Russia’s Indigenous Peoples and high-level methane events emanating from Russian territory.
Why This Case Must Be Heard
There are multiple reasons why the Russian climate case should be heard urgently by the Court:
First, is the extent of Russia’s contribution to the climate crisis. By way of comparison, Switzerland, the respondent state in in KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v Switzerland [‘KlimaSeniorinnen’] (and currently the only state against which the ECtHR has ruled in a climate case) is ranked 86th in the world league table of total GHG emissions per capita compared with Russia’s 4th place. Given the criticism levelled at the Court from some quarters for ‘targeting’ Switzerland alone, scrutiny of the (then) Council of Europe’s biggest GHG emitter might go some way to redressing the balance.
In addition to its high ranking GHG emissions, Russia is the second biggest source of global energy-related methane emissions. It is the world’s largest exporter of fossil gas; consistently ranked among the top three global exporters of oil; the third largest coal exporter and the largest gas flaring nation. It has the world’s largest gas reserves, second largest coal reserves and plans an increase of domestic coal production up to at least 2035.
Having signed the Paris Agreement in 2016 and accepted it into domestic law in September 2019, Russia nonetheless proceeded to increase rather than decrease its GHG emissions in the period that followed. By 2023, this amounted to an estimated 28% increase in Russia’s net GHG emissions compared with 2020.
Current Russian law and policy continue to provide for an ongoing increase in GHG emissions right up to 2030. This stands in direct contravention to scientific consensus that GHG emissions must peak before 2025, at the latest, and be reduced by 43% by 2030, as well as ICJ determinations of states’ legally binding obligations to protect the climate system and the human rights of present and future generations. Most recently, on 6 August 2025 (less than a month after the ICJ advisory opinion on climate change), Russia issued a new emissions decree which provided for a further increase in Russia’s emissions target until 2035 to a level of 21% greater than its reported 2021 emissions.
Second, consideration of the Russian climate case before the ECtHR would require the Court to grapple with the breadth and depth of states’ legal obligations in relation to climate change as set out by landmark advisory opinions handed down by the ITLOS; the IACtHR and the ICJ (all post-dating the KlimaSeniorinnen judgment). The guidance set out in those advisory opinions, must now be applied to the individual facts of those climate and human rights cases still pending before the ECtHR as a matter of urgency.
Third, this case provides an important and potentially unique opportunity to consider climate harms related to the cryosphere. Approximately two-thirds of Russian territory is covered by permafrost which, if thawed, has the potential to release billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, the consequences or which would may be irreversible within human timescales.
Fourth, the applicants in this case include members of Russia’s Indigenous Peoples whose voices have been marginalised. The IPCC has been clear that many Indigenous Peoples are at greater risk of harm to health caused by climate change and predicts that future climate impacts for Indigenous communities will include increased malnutrition and a high risk of basic needs not being met due to cascading and long-term impacts of loss of ecosystems. Few other countries could provide the ECtHR with the geographical and factual matrix to address this important issue.
Fifth, this case evidences the particular importance and dangers presented by methane emissions in the context of high-level methane events emanating from Russian territory as detected by the TROPOMI satellite. It further evidences the role of methane in aggravating climate change and the urgent need for reduction of the same – a topic which is becoming increasingly pressing in its relevance.
Lastly, the case raises fundamental issues under Article 34 of the Convention in relation to the safety and well-being of applicants. Many have suffered repercussions since joining this case. Others were deterred from joining due to the personal risk involved. Since litigation commenced, both applicant NGO’s [Ecodefense and Moscow Helsinki Group] have been liquidated by the Russian Courts. One applicant has had his citizenship and that of family members revoked since the case was brought to the domestic courts. Individual applicants (including the co-director of the NGO applicant Ecodefense) and the applicants’ lawyer have been designated ‘Foreign Agents’ under Russia’s Foreign Agent Law. The totality of these acts strike at the heart of the Convention system and require urgent attention from the Court.
Yet, more than two years after filing, the case appears to have stalled while the ECtHR’s climate caseload as a whole has dwindled to such an extent that only one of the twelve cases listed on its climate change factsheet (last updated April 2024 and which does not include the Russian climate case) remains pending before the Court.
This delay appears to be at odds both with the Court’s stated approach to Russian cases and its wider Priority Policy. In October 2024, the Court’s then President Marko Bošnjak declared “holding the Russian Federation accountable for its human rights obligations” to remain a priority concern for the ECtHR despite the country’s departure from the Council of Europe in 2022. Such accountability can, of course, only relate to those cases (of which this is one) over which the Court still has temporal jurisdiction.
The President stated that processing of such cases should follow two “tracks”. The first track was established to deal with “message” cases of “marked importance for Russia’s international law responsibility under the Convention”, “for example cases related to civil society activists and democratic governance”. The second deals with repetitive cases which fall under well-established case law and therefore processed in a “simpler manner” such as poor conditions in prisons or violations of the right to freedom of assembly.
As this post argues, there can be few cases with greater importance for Russia’s international law responsibility under the Convention than the Russian climate case and yet, puzzlingly, instead of becoming a “message case”, the Russian climate case has languished without communication for more than two years.
Temporal Jurisdiction
Although Russia ceased to be a party to the ECHR on 16 September 2022, this case remains within the Court’s temporal jurisdiction. This is because the climate acts and omissions upon which it is based not only precede the state’s departure from the Convention, they also have continuous effect after that date.
Long-standing policies culminating in the Presidential Decree of 4 November 2020 “On Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions”; and the ‘Low Greenhouse Gas Emissions Strategy’ of 29 October 2020, committed the Russian Federation to an emissions trajectory which has continuous effect to 2050 (and beyond in terms of its long-term impact on the planet). It is on this basis that Russia’s climate actions and omissions in advance of its departure from the Convention put in place a course of continuous effect which keeps it within the jurisdiction of the ECtHR.
Note by way of comparison, the example of ‘continuous’ effect provided by the Court in Pivkina and Others v Russia where the Court held that “a period of detention approved before the termination date but extending beyond it will fall within the Court’s temporal jurisdiction in its entirety on account of the “continuous” effect of the detention order” (§61).
Furthermore, the Court’s wider rationale as expressed in Pivkina is particularly relevant to consideration of this case, noting that:
“in cases where the interference occurs before the termination date but the failure to remedy it occurs after the termination date, it is the date of the interference that must be retained for determining the Court’s temporal jurisdiction. This avoids a situation where a State might evade its responsibility for the wrongs or damage caused while the Convention was in effect, prior to its termination” (§53).
What is the Point in Obtaining a Judgment Against Russia?
It is regularly contended (particularly since 2022) that there is little point in litigating against Russia when it is known that the state will not observe Court judgments. This attitude fundamentally misunderstands the importance of both the Convention and the rule of law, particularly in states where both are devalued.
A ruling from the ECtHR in this case would provide the first independent and legally binding judgment on Russia’s violations in relation to the climate crisis. Given Russia’s exit from the Council of Europe and the increasingly repressive environment for civil society, it would also most likely also present the last opportunity – at least for the foreseeable future – for an objective and independent court to scrutinise Russia’s grave climate system violations against international standards and set out clear remedies.
Russia, remains bound by its obligations under the Convention, including the obligation to implement judgments of the Court. The Committee of Ministers (which continues to supervise Russia’s execution of judgments) has already recognised that creative measures are necessary to ensure that Russia’s legal obligations emanating from ECtHR judgments remain visible and usable by other international institutions. For example, by referring to cooperation with United Nations bodies as a potential means of achieving compliance with ECtHR obligations. An ECtHR judgment could be a powerful tool on the international stage not just legally but for use in diplomatic talks or advocacy work. In the words of one of the applicants: “We can point to it and use it in our advocacy work – either in a future, better Russia, or on the international stage: at the UN and in trade talks – wherever Russia is still present. We want to make the truth harder to ignore.”
Russia is not alone in disregarding judgements of the ECtHR, whether in the short or long-term. In June 2024, the Swiss parliament voted to reject the Court’s landmark ruling in KlimaSeniorinnen. Similar examples can be found across a range of countries and issues. Yet even a fundamental understanding of the rule of law makes clear that such defiance cannot justify judicial restraint. On the contrary, states’ refusal to comply with ECtHR rulings must never serve as an argument to shield them from further legal scrutiny. To do so would reward non-compliance and undermine the very foundation of human rights accountability.
If the ECtHR continues to ignore the Russian climate case, it would not be the first time that the Court has failed Russian civil society by delaying meaningful action until it was too late to prevent irreversible harm. The first ‘Foreign Agent’ law judgment against Russia came an astonishing 10 years after it had been filed with the Court. Although the applicants were ultimately successful, the decimation of Russian civil society had already been set in stone by the time of judgment. The same mistake must not be made again. As noted by Greenpeace: Russia’s impact on the global climate change response is so great that “without Russia’s participation, meaningful progress towards solving global environmental problems and the climate and biodiversity crises will be impossible”.
In accordance with the Court’s own policies, for the sake of the planet, and to advance protection of the rights, lives and livelihoods of present and future generations, the Russian climate case should be heard as a matter of urgency.