“Did the Court in KlimaSeniorinnen create an actio popularis?” Eight months after the ECtHR’s climate judgment against Switzerland, this question remains a bone of contention both in Swiss politics and among scholars. It relates to whether the ECtHR, in allowing for representative climate applications by associations, jettisoned admissibility requirements and allowed for abstract public interest complaints. On several recent occasions, George Letsas has examined this question, and proposed an innovative answer: Namely that the Court’s much-discussed approaches to victim status and standing can be justified, but only if understood as a recognition of the rights of future generations. Although this proposal is intriguing, it is neither evident based on the text of the KlimaSeniorinnen judgment, nor is it the only way to avoid actio popularis allegations. This post suggests an alternative approach, arguing that a simpler and more convincing answer lies in the affectedness of the older women at the heart of the case.
I. Who was the victim in KlimaSeniorinnen? Letsas’s proposal
