On 9 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights issued a climate judgment with global resonance. This judgment, in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Switzerland et al. v. Switzerland, triggered intense political and academic debate. In Switzerland, responses ranged from celebration to calls to reform the ECHR system or even leave it entirely. These controversies infused the implementation of the judgment, culminating in a resistant stance from the Swiss government. The supervision of the judgment’s execution has therefore attracted particular interest.

The task of supervising execution is entrusted to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers (Art. 46 (1) ECHR) which, in March 2024, held its first meeting about KlimaSeniorinnen. The decision to hold this meeting is itself unremarkable. The relevant Rules provide for special, confidential human rights meetings on the execution of judgments. But the meeting on KlimaSeniorinnen merits further discussion, both as concerns the public submissions made by the various stakeholders involved, and its outcome.

Run-up to the first examination

The implementation of this case is informed by the backdrop of Swiss politics. Although calls to terminate Swiss membership in the ECHR post-KlimaSeniorinnen – themselves the reincarnation of a longer political project by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party – did not find majority appeal, resistance against KlimaSeniorinnen resonated with parliamentarians across the political spectrum. After a parliamentary declaration from both houses of the Swiss legislature lamenting ‘judicial activism’ on the part of the Court, the Federal Executive decided to communicate an ‘action report’ to the Committee of Ministers in October 2024. This report was submitted on time and emphasized domestic legislative changes as well as confirming that the costs and expenses awarded in the case had been paid. So far, so good.

However, the content of the Swiss submission is far from laudable. Instead of an action plan detailing how the government intends to remedy the human rights violations found in KlimaSeniorinnen, the government submitted an action report. This signals its understanding that KlimaSeniorinnen has already been implemented, and that no further action is required, meaning that the monitoring process can be concluded. This is also the position that the government appears to have taken in the March supervision meeting. This complements its endorsement of an ongoing parliamentary proposal to reform the ECtHR by binding it to an originalist, textual interpretation of the Convention.

Has Switzerland actually complied with the judgment?

The argument that Switzerland has sufficiently amended its domestic law to comply with KlimaSeniorinnen relies on recent legislative amendments, namely the Climate Act (which the Court considered in its judgment) and the revised CO2 Act, along with their respective ordinances. These laws do set out decade-by-decade intermediate reduction targets and a linear emissions reductions path towards the country’s net-zero-by-2050 target. However, as the Swiss NHRI noted, this ‘report’ has several shortcomings. Its interim targets are still broadly framed, it does not consider emissions abroad, and it does not quantify the emissions that Switzerland has remaining by creating a carbon budget or similar, which is a core element of KlimaSeniorinnen (para. 550).

Switzerland’s position is that there is no internationally agreed methodology for defining a carbon budget, because defining the relevant principles of “fair shares” and equity is up to individual States. This is not contradicted by the Paris Agreement, or by KlimaSeniorinnen. However, Switzerland simultaneously refuses to conduct its own science-informed quantification, e.g. mirroring the one provided by NGOs intervening in the implementation proceedings, instead substituting its current emissions reductions goals as if these were the result of such a calculation. This implies that human rights law cannot demand more from States than the Paris Agreement does, while also overstretching the discretion of States in determining what constitutes ‘fair’ national emissions and ignoring global climate justice concerns.

As amply demonstrated by the intervening NGOs and the Swiss NHRI, Switzerland has not yet complied with the Court’s ruling in full, omitting the arguably most important obligation concretized therein. The Swiss media has correctly understood this approach for what it is: a decision to ignore the judgment. The question, then, is what will happen now.

The Committee of Ministers’ response, and an outlook

On 6 March 2025, the Committee of Ministers rejected Switzerland’s position that it had completed implementation of the judgment. It opted to continue monitoring, noting that climate change is a particularly pressing issue and inviting Switzerland to provide more information on its quantification methodology, adaptation measures, procedural safeguards and associations’ access to justice. The next monitoring meeting has been scheduled for September 2025.

Although only an interim step, the outcome of the first supervision meeting is an important success: it demonstrates that the representatives of the other Council of Europe member States – who make up the Committee of Ministers – will not accept Swiss efforts to ignore the ruling. But what if Switzerland doubles down? The relevant Rules give the Committee of Ministers several options for dealing with non-compliant States. It can schedule new supervision meetings, adopt interim resolutions noting the state of progress or expressing concern, refer questions back to the Court, or even (highly exceptionally, and unlikely here) trigger infringement proceedings.

Importantly, the scope of climate-related international obligations considered feasible and legitimate is constantly evolving. By the next Committee of Ministers meeting, there may be advisory opinions on climate change from the Inter-American Court or even the International Court of Justice. Several Council of Europe Member States have recently emerged as champions of environmental rights, and an upcoming (13-14 May 2025) high-level meeting of the Committee of Ministers stands to adopt a Strategy on the Environment, as well as potential guidance on the right to a healthy environment. Such developments could reinforce the Committee of Ministers’ resolve to demand compliance with the judgment. In any case, because the Swiss response to this judgment stands to influence expectations of future climate cases, KlimaSeniorinnen’s implementation – which can be monitored via the HUDOC-EXEC database – deserves to be closely watched.