Chapron, Guillaume
- Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the KlimaSeniorinnen case that Switzerland had not implemented a legal framework capable of addressing climate change and that this constituted a violation of the right to private and family life. Despite being celebrated as "historic," this ruling reflects established case law rather than a legal breakthrough. Hyperbolic reactions reveal a lack of empirical rigor in legal commentary, which undermines evidence-based climate policymaking. We caution against exaggerating the impact of individual rulings, given limited evidence of their influence on climate policies and emissions reductions, and encourage legal scholars to instead adopt methodological rigor akin to practices in other scientific disciplines. Specifically, we advocate for empirical approaches in law, through comprehensive data collection, robust statistical methods, and systematic analysis to better understand the role of courts in climate change mitigation.
Published in
PLOS climate
2025, volume: 4, number: 3, article number: e0000589
Publisher: PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Law
Climate Science
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000589
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/141663