‘Human Rights Are Not Against Society': On Standing in Climate Change Litigation

Courts have developed diverse approaches to standing inclimate cases. This is, because claimants around the world increasingly invoke human rights obligations to fight against legislative reluctance and executive neglect in climate protection matters. They argue that heatwaves and the impacts of ot her extreme weather events threaten their rights to life, physical integrity, privacy, or property. Many scholars welcome this ‘rights‑turn' in climate change litigation. From a climate governance perspective, they hope for more coherent mitigation measures and the enforcement or establishment of the right to a healthy environment.4 At the same time, others criticise humanrights‑ based climate change litigation for lacking democratic legitimacy. According to the latter, the judicial standard of review in human rights questions is necessarily rough; this, in turn, hampers the legislators' task of fine‑tuning climate change mitigation. Whether a climate claim is justiciable and, thus, will be heard in court depends to a great extent on the question of standing. Certainly, standing means something different in each jurisdiction. In most legal systems, however, access to court is closely connected to the distinction between individual rights and collective interests. For climate cases, it is crucial how legally protected interests are attributed to the individual – especially if claimants allege rights violations or a threat to an individual right.
Autorin: Anna-Julia Saiger