Children and youth’s rights in international climate disputes

In the context of climate change, civil societies organisations and citizens have been challenging States (and companies) in courts. Climate change litigation has multiplied those past few years. Many litigants institute proceedings on the basis of human rights violations linked to the effect of climate change. They claim that States have violated their fundamental rights by causing and perpetuating global warming. In the spur of all human-rights related climate litigation worldwide, mainly introduced at the domestic level, two cases arose at the supranational level. In the cases Chiara Sacchi, et al. v. Argentina, et al. before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and Others, currently pending before the European Court of Human Rights, children and young claimants argue the responsibility of the respondents’ States for the breach of their fundamental rights related to the impacts of climate change. This work will shed a light on lawsuits brought by children and young people at the supranational level in the climate change litigation context, as well as examine the obstacles encountered in bringing such claims.