Webinar: Looking back to look ahead: Implications of Saachi et al. v Argentina for human rights and climate change

The ruling, decided between the Human Rights Council’s recognition of a right to environment and next month’s Conference of Parties (COP26), has been described as a “historic ruling” and has attracted a lot of attention.

Among its findings, the Committee was convinced that the five States had effective control over the activities that are the sources of emissions that contribute to the reasonably foreseeable harm to children outside their territories. It then concluded that a sufficient causal link had been established between the harm alleged by the 16 children and the acts or omissions of the five States for the purposes of establishing jurisdiction, and that the children had sufficiently justified that the harm that they had personally suffered was significant. However, the Committee could not proceed to adjudicate on whether the five States parties had violated their obligations to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as the petitioners did not exhaust local remedies. The decision relied on jurisprudence from different human rights bodies, especially the Inter-American Court on Human Rights. This Webinar unpacks some of the implications of the case.