UNC Asheville Professor Mark Gibney With The EOC Intervenes In Landmark Climate Change Case
The Extraterritorial Obligations Consortium, a group of esteemed human rights organizations and academics including Amnesty International and UNC Asheville Professor Mark Gibney, have intervened in a landmark climate change case being considered before the European Court of Human Rights today. The case, brought about by six young people from Portugal, seeks to hold 33 European countries accountable for failing to do their part to avert climate catastrophe. The Extraterritorial Obligations Consortium have provided the Court with legal arguments on how government climate policies must protect the rights of people outside their borders.
“This case challenges the idea that states only have human rights obligations within their own territorial borders,” says Political Science Professor Mark Gibney. “With climate change, it is all too evident that the policies of one state can have a profound effect on the enjoyment of human rights by individuals in other countries. International human rights law has been slow to recognize this. If successful, this case will not only be a decisive win for the environment and both present and future generations, but for human rights in its entirety.”