Environmental Disasters and Humanitarian Protection: A Fertile Ground for Litigating Climate Change and Human Rights in Italy?

Abstract

On 24 February 2021, the Italian Corte Suprema di Cassazione delivered a landmark ordinance unequivocally establishing that the existence of a situation of environmental degradation in the country of origin of an international protection seeker, which entails grave human rights violations, justifies the recognition of the humanitarian protection status. In ruling that the assessment of vulnerability, for the purpose of granting humanitarian protection, must also be conducted in relation to environmental and climatic conditions which are capable of seriously affecting the enjoyment of human rights, the Supreme Court potentially paves the way for a first wave of rights-based climate lawsuits before Italian civil courts.