European Court of Human Rights Gives Frightened Old Swiss Women the Win Over Switzerland
Not that it matters, but it matters.
Apr. 10 - Today’s Daily Briefing from the New York Times bore the subject line: “A major climate ruling in Europe.”
I’ll say!
Here’s their headline item:
A European court made a significant climate ruling
Europe’s top human-rights court said the Swiss government had violated its citizens’ rights by failing to meet its climate targets. Experts said it was the first instance in which an international court had used human rights law to determine that governments were legally obligated to meet their climate goals.
Rule of law is the bedrock on which western civilization was built.
Our complex civilization requires an international order in which international bodies, established jointly and with voluntary membership, enable civilized, law-based nations to settle disagreements with one another.
It does not require any kind of supranational court that lets citizens sue their own governments. Free countries allow for citizen-government conflicts to be settled within the mechanisms established in their own national framework, and unfree countries have their own less pleasant ways of dealing with citizen discontent.
A group of women, all 64 or older, argued that their health was at risk during heat waves related to global warming, and that by not doing enough to mitigate warming, Switzerland’s government had violated their rights.
They were saying their government had violated their right to temperate weather.
“Everybody talks about the weather,” Mark Twain is attributed as saying, “but nobody does anything about it.”
Probably because up until now nobody knew they were entitled to mild temperatures.
“This is a landmark ruling, and it could trigger a wave of similar lawsuits in European countries,” David Gelles, the managing correspondent of our Climate Forward newsletter, told us.
Could trigger? It’s going to unleash a tsunami, is what it’s going to do.
This is indeed a landmark ruling. My own reaction is that the ECHR should be abolished, Switzerland should exile the women who brought this suit against their own country, the Swiss should drop out of the EU, and Denmark should lower my taxes.
(The last one is part of my reaction to everything.)
In no sane system should people be legally enabled to sue their own country on the basis of heat waves. There is no human right to mild summers.
I subscribe to the NYT newsletters to keep myself apprised of what they’re up to over on the latté left, but I’m not willing to pay to get behind their paywall—so let’s switch over to the Politico.eu coverage for a little more depth:
Switzerland violated its citizens' human rights by failing to protect them from climate change's catastrophic effects, Europe’s top human rights court said Tuesday in a ruling expected to reverberate across future lawsuits.
Not “reverberate across” future lawsuits: invite them. Summon them. Incentivize them.
The judgment — dubbed KlimaSeniorinnen after the senior women taking the country to court — came after a trial that saw elderly Swiss women allege Bern wasn't cutting planet-warming emissions fast enough to avoid climate disasters such as heat waves that disproportionately harm older people.
People do realize that climate isn’t something individual countries can control, right?
Even if Switzerland was the world’s best cutter of “planet warming emissions,” what the hell would it matter if the rest of the world was dragging its ass?
How many of these hysterical women do you think were passing around this meme just a few years ago:
Well, probably none since it’s in English and says states instead of cantons, but you get the point: maybe these Swiss twits just needed a meme?
The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights is the judicial arm of the Council of Europe, an international human rights organization separate from the European Union. Its rulings are binding on the Council’s 46 members, which includes all 27 EU countries.
On the deranged Swiss ladies’ own website, they describe the purpose of their organization like this:
With our lawsuit we’re demanding that the federal authorities correct the course of Swiss climate policy because the current climate targets and measures are not sufficient to limit global warming to a safe level.
Sorry, ladies, but nothing Switzerland does on its own will be sufficient to limit global warming. You’ve got 0.1% of the global population. China alone has twelve cities with larger populations than your whole country. We could tear your whole country down and cover it in wildflowers and it wouldn’t do a goddam thing for global temperatures.
The dear old things also explain their particular approach:
Since only people with legal standing can sue, we have formed the Climate Seniors Association. Why an association? Because that way the legal proceedings do not depend on individual persons. Why female seniors? Because older women are particularly susceptible to intense and frequent heat waves. Obviously, we are aware that older men, people with diseases as well as small children also suffer from heat waves and other climate effects. By focusing on the proven particular susceptibility of us older women we are simply enhancing our lawsuit’s chances of success which is ultimately good for everyone.
Older women are particularly susceptible to a lot of things.
And I would like some data to support the contention that the success of their lawsuit was “good for everyone.”
Are the people of Iceland suing their government for not doing enough to prevent volcanoes?
Are the people of Florida preparing a suit against Ron DeSantis for dragging his feet on hurricane prevention?
When will Gavin Newsom be brought to court for his insufficient work at eliminating earthquakes?
“I had no idea there were so many old women in the world,” the biographer Henry Troyat quotes Anton Chekhov as saying, “and had I known, I’d have long since blown my brains out.”
The ladies also write (more likely wrote, since the website doesn’t appear to have been updated since their big win):
Our association counts over 2500 members and we are still looking for additional senior female plaintiffs to join our suit (ages 64 and older living in Switzerland – because women over 75 are especially at risk). Greenpeace Switzerland supports us and guarantees the costs of the proceedings so that no financial risks arise for our association and members.
So it’s actually the cultural Marxists of Greenpeace Switzerland driving this thing, using a few battalions of Swiss grandmothers as a front—for standing, as they say.
Now back to Politico:
Tuesday's ruling doesn't include any sanctions on the Swiss government, but it does create a precedent others can use to seek penalties in national courts.
The Swiss judgment was one of three high-profile climate cases before the human rights court. All alleged that government inaction on climate change violated people's basic rights to life, privacy and family.
This is all horrible, from start to finish. Horrible and stupid and, in the end, guaranteed to bite everyone in the ass. Hard.
And yet.
And yet. . .
The boomerang principle is a real thing: sooner or later, the weapons you use against your enemies will eventually be used against you.
There are plenty of problems in Europe right now, and plenty governments unwilling or unable to address them. I think everything about the Swiss Ladies case is an abomination, but by god, if those are the rules, then we’ve all got to play by them!
On this date in 1938, in a referendum conducted by Nazis, and with open ballots, 99.7 percent of Austrians approved the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany—which had occupied Austria a month earlier. That occupation had occurred the day before the original referendum on whether Austria should remain independent or unite with Germany was to have taken place. In the run-up to the March referendum, it was believed that about 65% of Austrians would vote for independence. It only took a month of Nazi “election fortification” to turn that right around.
Also on this date, in 1912, the Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage—an event best known for having produced Kate Winslet’s only full frontal nudity scene.
Today is the birthday of the late, great John Madden (1936), Omar Sharif (1932), and Max von Sydow (1929).
Happy Hump Day!
© 2024 The Moron’s Almanac
Impressive new achievement in stupid all around.
Point of order, though. Switzerland is not part of the EU and the ECHR is nothing to do with the EU. The court is under the aegis of the Council of Europe (Europarådet), which covers a larger group of countries, including Ukraine, various countries in the Caucasus, as well as Turkey, Norway and Switzerland.