Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/59290
Title: The European Union and global warming: A fundamental right to (live in) a sustainable climate?
Contributor(s): Quirico, Ottavio  (author)orcid 
Publication Date: 2023
DOI: 10.1177/1023263X231202481
Handle Link: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/59290
Abstract: 

Multiple developments are taking place in the European Union (EU) as concerns climate action through fundamental rights. On the one hand, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) might afford protection from climate change via first- and second-generation human rights" on the other, the EU is progressively recognizing the human right to a sustainable environment, and possibly to a sustainable climate, via Article 37 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. These developments are nonetheless restrained by the limited possibility for individual natural and legal persons to act in the Court. On the other hand, EU Member States are parties to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), to which the EU will also foreseeably accede in the future and through which a string of claims has been brought to the attention of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Also in this context, protection from climate change might be afforded via first- and second-generation fundamental rights, and possibly via the third-generation right to a sustainable environment and climate. Contrary to the CJEU system, however, there are no procedural limits to action by individual natural and legal persons in the ECtHR. The article argues that an extensive interpretation of first- and second-generation human rights, particularly the rights to life and to private and family life under ECHR articles 2 and 8, collectively interpreted as the rights to live in a sustainable environment and climate in line with the jurisprudence of the ECtHR, reverses the burden of proof and is essentially tantamount to acknowledging an independent fundamental right to a sustainable environment and climate, thus ensuring adequate climate protection in the EU from a human rights perspective.

Publication Type: Journal Article
Source of Publication: Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 30(3), p. 236-254
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
Place of Publication: United Kingdom
ISSN: 2399-5548
1023-263X
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020: 4803 International and comparative law
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020: 230406 Legal processes
Peer Reviewed: Yes
HERDC Category Description: C1 Refereed Article in a Scholarly Journal
Appears in Collections:Journal Article
School of Law

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