KlimaSeniorinnen and Gender

May 9, 2024 | Dina Lupin, Maria Antonia Tigre and Natalia Urzola
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Much has been said already about the decision in KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland granted on Apr 9, 2024 by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court). The Court’s decision was groundbreaking in that it established an obligation to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as a human rights duty, required countries to establish a carbon budget, and arguably established a new right under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (see here, here, and here). Still, there is much more to discuss regarding its broader implications for climate litigation. This blog post discusses the relevance of the KlimaSeniorinnen case to the discussion of vulnerability and intersectional gender in climate litigation. To date, very few climate cases have addressed the gendered dimensions of climate change and there was some hope that this case would. However, as this post argues, despite the fact that KlimaSeniorinnen is a case about the impacts of climate change on elderly women, the Court fails to meaningfully engage with gender as a determinant of the harms suffered by individuals. Gender remains an overlooked issue in climate litigation.