Prof. Dr. Christina Eckes
University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
Date: 9.4.2025, 6:00 p.m.
Venue: Room L623, 6th floor | Faculty of Law | Sigmund Freud University | Lassallestraße 3, 1020 Vienna
Climate litigation responds to the widespread political failures to adequately address the climate crisis. Several European courts read European or constitutional human rights norms to impose climate mitigation obligations on states. In an incremental process of ‘climate constitutionalisation’, these courts vest mitigation obligations construed from human rights in combination with international commitments and climate science with a higher rank than inadequate climate actions of the defending state.
In addition to climate constitutionalisation in national courts, we see an increasing escalation of climate cases to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The interaction with the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) has in particular in the Netherlands and Switzerland led to pushback by politicians, who argue that judges interfere with decision-making by elected representatives and popular majorities and that this is undemocratic.
Drawing on general emission reduction cases against states in Europe, this lecture briefly traces how non-enforceable legal norms, political commitments, and climate science are used to interpret prevailing human rights norms. It then examines whether and how such climate constitutionalisation stands in tension with different ideals and realities of democracy.
Please register until 8.4.2025: konrad.lachmayer@jus.sfu.ac.at
Biography
Christina Eckes is professor of European law at the University of Amsterdam and director of the Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance (ACELG). In 2024, she started carrying out the research for a 5-year ERC Consolidator project on the direct and indirect consequences of climate litigation in Europe (www.climatelitigation.uva.nl). Her current research focuses on climate science in court, democratic justifications of public interest litigation, the role of European Union law and the European Convention on Human Rights in climate litigation, the role of scientific advisory bodies, how to assess ‘fair shares’, and dissensus about climate policies. Previously, she led the NORFACE project Separation of powers for 21st century Europe (2020-2024). Her publications include EU Powers under External Pressure – How the EU’s External Actions Alter its Internal Structures (OUP, 2019) and EU Counter-Terrorist Policies and Fundamental Rights – The Case of Individual Sanctions (OUP, 2009).