The climate crisis does not respect borders and our laws and policies must reflect this

Ashfaq Khalfan, Amnesty International's Law and Policy Director.

The Court will decide on whether it agrees to proceed with the case filed not only against Portugal, where the applicants live, but also 32 other countries – which comprise of EU members as well as Norway, Russia, Turkey, Switzerland, UK and Ukraine.

“The climate crisis does not respect borders and our laws and policies must reflect this. To ensure justice for people most affected by heatwaves, drought and forest fires – particularly children – states must be required to tackle climate change and its impacts at home and abroad,” said Ashfaq Khalfan, Amnesty’s Law and Policy Director.

“Governments can no longer act as if people outside their borders do not matter when they design their climate policies.”

The crowdfunded case, Duarte Agostinho and others v. Portugal and others, in which the group is intervening, has been brought by six youth from Portugal who are accusing 33 European countries of violating their human rights, including their right to life, by not taking adequate steps to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

To ensure justice for people most affected by heatwaves, drought and forest fires states must be required to tackle climate change and its impacts at home and abroad

Amnesty International

“Those affected by climate change should be allowed to make claims against governments other than their own. If governments are only required to act on the rights of people living within their borders, it is easier for them to ignore the impacts on people in the most affected countries and be more lethargic in their work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” said Professor Mark Gibney, of the University of North Carolina Asheville.

If allowed to proceed, the case could set an important precedent, clearing the way for other climate lawsuits based on human rights arguments.

“This case is also important to ensure governments are required to design climate policy in a way that recognises the particular climate risks to children and take the ambitious climate protection measures needed to protect their rights,” said Gamze Erdem Türkelli, of the University of Antwerp. 

For more information contact Ashfaq Khalfan, Twitter: @ashfaqkhalfan

Gamze Erdem Türkelli, Twitter: @GamzeErdmTrklli

Amnesty International press office: Twitter @StefSimanowitz

For more details about the intervention, see:https://www.etoconsortium.org/en/news/news/first-climate-change-case-at-the-european-court-of-human-rights-justice-must-not-stop-at-borders-182/ . The submission is available here.

For more information on the case, see http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-206535 and https://youth4climatejustice.org/the-case/.

BACKGROUND

The six applicants in this case, Cláudia Agostinho (21), Catarina Mota (20), Martim Agostinho (17), Sofia Oliveira (15), André Oliveira (12) and Mariana Agostinho (8), are suing the 27 European Union member states, as well as the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine for failing to make deep and urgent emissions cuts to safeguard their future.

The group intervening today as a third party in the case is made up of members of the Extraterritorial Obligations Consortium which advocates for rights beyond borders.

It includes: Amnesty International; the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS); the Center for Transnational Environmental Accountability (CTEA); the Economic and Social Rights Centre (Hakijamii); FIAN International; the Great Lakes Initiative for Human Rights and Development (GLIHD); the University of Antwerp Law and Development Research Group; Prof. Dr. Mark Gibney; Dr. Gamze Erdem Turkelli; Dr. Sara Seck; Prof. Dr. Sigrun Skogly; Dr. Nicolas Carrillo-Santarelli; Prof. Dr. Jernej Letnar Cernic; Tom Mulisa; Dr. Nicholas Orago; Prof. Dr. Wouter Vandenhole; and Jingjing Zhang

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People’s rights are being violated by governments in Europe and Central Asia, who are cracking down on protests and seeking to erode the independence of the judiciary to avoid accountability, Amnesty International said today as it published its annual review of human rights in the region.

The organization praised those brave people who took to the streets to defend their own and others’ rights but warned that governments continue to perpetrate human rights violations with impunity across the region.

In 2019, people in Europe and Central Asia were threatened, intimidated, prosecuted, subjected to excessive use of force by police, and suffered discrimination. However, the grassroots mobilization of courageous people who dared to stand up and hold states accountable provides a ray of hope for the future,

Marie Struthers, Europe Director at Amnesty International

Independence of the judiciary under threat

In Poland, the independence of the judiciary – essential for ensuring fair trials and upholding human rights – was threatened as the ruling party took bolder steps to control judges and courts.

Judges and prosecutors found themselves at risk of disciplinary proceedings for speaking out in defence of the judiciary and risked becoming victims of human rights violations themselves. Many were subjected to smear campaigns on state and social media.

Concerns also mounted about the independence of the judiciary in Hungary, Romania and Turkey. Judges in Hungary came under attack from multiple directions as the government continued its attempts to undermine the independence of the judiciary. In May, the European Commission warned Romania that it should address issues including interference with judicial independence by the executive, or potentially face having some of the member state’s rights suspended for persistent breach of the EU’s founding values. In Turkey, a judicial reform package was passed by Parliament. The reforms failed to address the extreme political pressure on the judiciary or to end unfair and politically motivated prosecutions and convictions.

Freedom of peaceful assembly

Independent courts were vitally needed in 2019 to safeguard individual freedoms as state overreach came to the fore, with restrictions on protests in France, Poland and Turkey as well as prosecution of protesters in many more.

Major protests took place in numerous countries across Europe including France, Austria, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary, with people protesting against austerity measures and corruption, and in defence of social justice and the independence of the judiciary. Protests and strikes urging governments to take measures against climate change became a regular occurrence in major European cities. 

Many states repressed the demonstrations through measures that breached the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression. In France, Austria and Spain, hundreds of people were injured by the police during protests. Police resorted to excessive force in France, and violently disrupted peaceful gatherings in Turkey where blanket bans on gatherings were often used to deny the right to freedom of peaceful assembly. States frequently failed to hold their security forces accountable for violence perpetrated during the protests.

Some judges adjudicating in cases relating to protests were harassed or demoted by the Polish authorities.

In Moscow, and other Russian cities, the largest numbers of peaceful protesters seen in many years stood up against the authorities’ refusal to allow opposition candidates to take part in the city elections. The resultant crackdown led to criminal convictions for two dozen participants, simply for exercising their right to protest.

“The reprisals against participants of mass protests in Moscow kick-started an unprecedented solidarity campaign that signals the further awakening of human rights awareness and people power in Russia,” said Marie Struthers.

Migration

European states continued to avoid accountability for human rights violations resulting from their migration policies by “outsourcing” border control to countries with questionable human rights records. In 2019, migration policies continued to prioritise the protection of borders over the protection of human lives. Despite the deteriorating security situation there, European countries continued cooperating with Libya to contain migrants and asylum-seekers in the country.

In November, the Italian government extended its agreement with Libya on migration for a further three years, despite continuing evidence pointing to systematic human rights violations including torture in Libya’s detention centres.

Reports of grave human rights violations against asylum-seekers and refugees, and their continued denial of access to protection, failed to deter the EU from partnering with Turkey to curb migration via the 2016 EU-Turkey Deal. Ahead of Turkey’s incursion into north-eastern Syria in October, Amnesty International conducted dozens of interviews which suggested hundreds of Syrians were likely forcibly deported from Turkey between May and September, under the guise of “voluntary returns”. The deal is also causing unprecedented overcrowding of the camps in the Aegean islands, where tens of thousands of people live in destitute conditions.

Human rights defenders under attack

Civil society, journalists and others responsible for holding governments to account faced pressure in 2019.

“Human rights defenders, journalists, NGOs and other people campaigning for a fairer and more just society were all at the sharp end of government crackdowns in 2019,” said Marie Struthers.

Their work to hold authorities to account, will only be more vital during the COVID-19 crisis and in its aftermath. The humanity and solidarity they show towards the most marginalized members of our societies are needed now more than ever, and will continue to be essential during the post-COVID-19 recovery.

Marie Struthers

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact Amnesty International press office on press@amnesty.org +32 2 548 27 73 or +32 483 680 812

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The organizers have complained to the courts and have been granted a hearing at 10am on Friday to allow the march to go ahead as originally planned.

The proposed Baltic Pride march was authorised by the RCC’s Commission
on Meetings, Marches and Demonstrations on 8 May, following a series of
agreements between the organisers, the City Council and the police on
the march’s venue and the necessary security arrangements.

On Wednesday, a majority of Riga’s City Council members signed an open letter to the Executive Director of the City Council, Andris Grinbergs, calling on him to revoke permission for the march on the grounds that it was offensive to public decency and posed a threat to public security.  

The Council members stated that if the Executive Director did not revoke permission by 4pm on 14 May, they would seek to overrule the decision through a vote in the City Council.

Amnesty International condemned the decision not to allow the march.

“This is a disgraceful move by the Riga City Council,” said Nicola Duckworth, Amnesty International’s Director of the Europe and Central Asia programme. “The decision is unlawful under Latvian law and violates the rights of Baltic LGBT people to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

“The Council should immediately reverse its decision and allow the march. Amnesty International fully supports the legal challenge by the organizers.”

Over 70 Amnesty International activists from 23 European countries are intending to travel to Riga to participate in the march and related events.

Planned Pride events in Russia and the Ukraine have also been banned.

A march planned for Saturday in Moscow, Russia, has been banned for the fourth year running. A spokesperson for Moscow’s mayor is reported to have said that organizers of LGBT parades are seeking “not only to destroy moral pillars of our society but also deliberately provoke disorder, which would threaten the lives and security of Muscovites and guests of the city.”

Members of the LGBT movement are threatening to hold their action on May 16 regardless of whether they get permission or not. The Moscow government is declaring that no gay parades have been and will be held in Moscow.

The march is planned to coincide with the Eurovision Song Contest final, which is taking place in Moscow on Saturday. The Dutch entrant to the competition, pop singer Gordon, has said that he will refuse to take the stage if Russian police violently suppress the march.

Municipal authorities in Mykolayiv City, Ukraine, have banned LGBT groups from holding public events as part of a “Rainbow spring 2009” festival for the second year running. The organizers had planned to mark International Day Against Homophobia on Sunday, 17 May.

The municipal authorities, in a message to the Mykolayiv Association of Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals, LiGA, said that “holding of this event creates the danger of social unrest; it would undermine peace and the public order and would result in massive clashes and conflicts.”

The Central Administrative Court of Mykolaiyv delivered their judgement upholding the banning of the Rainbow Spring Festival at midday on Thursday.

“These bans demonstrate a clear lack of understanding of the obligations of the state and the local authorities to protect and respect the right to freedom of expression of all people, including those holding minority views,” said Nicola Duckworth.

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