The National and EU Targets for Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Infringe the ECHR: The Judicial Review of General Policy Objectives

Abstract

Some time ago, on 20 December 2019, the Dutch court of cassation, the Hoge Raad (Supreme Court), ruled that the target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions1 by at least 20% compared to those of 1990 by the end of the year 2020, set by the Netherlands government in accordance with EU minimum targets, infringes the right to life and the right to private and family life under Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.2 Even more significantly, it upheld the order of the District Court of The Hague, and sustained at the Appeals Court, that the State of the Netherlands – appearing in court as a legal person under Dutch civil law – must reduce the joint volume of annual greenhouse gas emissions, or have them reduced, by at least 25% at the end of 2020 compared to the emission level of the year 1990. This Urgenda case has by now generated a huge amount of commentary, in all its three instances, mostly positive; precisely on the