The ECtHR’s Take on Victim Status and its Recent Climate Change Cases

[Sude Kınık is a legal trainee at Kabine Law Office in Istanbul, Turkey]

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its latest climate change judgment, Greenpeace Nordic and Others v. Norway on October 28th, following closely in the footsteps of its decision in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland. In this new case, the Court reaffirmed and applied the KlimaSeniorinnen criteria for granting individual applicants victim status. The applicant association, Greenpeace Nordic, was granted standing under Article 34 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), while the individual applicants were denied victim status.

“Victim status” is an admissibility issue. In its traditional sense, it requires applicants who claim a violation before the Court to demonstrate a personal, direct effect, or, at a minimum, a real risk of such an effect, while rejecting actio popularis. Having previously established that the notion of “victim” must be interpreted in the light of “present-day conditions” (see here, and Louizidou v. Turkey preliminary objections para. 71) the Court effectively held in the KlimaSeniorinnen that the term victim status needed a “special approach”, citing the specificity of the climate-change context (paras. 478-488). It ultimately established the criteria for victim status assessment and recently reiterated these criteria in the Greenpeace Nordic v. Norway: (a) high-intensity exposure to significant adverse effects (level and severity of risk); and (b) a pressing need for individual protection due to inadequate mitigation measures (KlimaSeniorinnen paras. 486-487; and Greenpeace Nordic v. Norway paras. 286-287) 

The Court emphasized that these criteria are subject to a particularly high threshold, precisely because, in the climate-change context, virtually everyone is exposed to its adverse effects or the real risk thereof. 

According to the Court, this universal vulnerability against climate change distinguishes climate cases from the Court’s traditional victim-status jurisprudence, which requires a direct personal impact or imminent risk from the impugned state action or omission (para. 483). If victim status is granted without rigorous qualification, potentially vast numbers of individuals could claim it under the Convention, even absent the jurisdictional constraints. Such an expansive approach would effectively sanction actio popularis, which the Convention explicitly excludes, thereby undermining the efficacy of the individual-application mechanism. It risks encroaching on national constitutional balances and the separation of powers by transforming the Court into a forum for compelling broad policy shifts on climate mitigation (paras. 483-485). 

In this post, I discuss (1) the Court’s application of the KlimaSeniorinnen Test in Greenpeace Nordic v. Norway, (2) its inconsistency with the climate change context, and (3) its climate litigation implications. 

The Court’s Application of the KlimaSeniorinnen Test

After the KlimaSeniorinnen judgment, commentators criticized the Court for applying the victim status criteria in climate change cases so strictly that the test was rendered practically inapplicable (see here, and here). Effectively, the Court, in both KlimaSeniorinnen and Greenpeace Nordic v. Norway, did not grant victim status to individual applicants despite scientifically supported arguments from groups that are relatively more vulnerable to climate change impacts, such as elder women and indigenous youth. 

In KlimaSeniorinnen, the Court found that while older women are scientifically recognized as highly vulnerable to climate impacts such as heatwaves, this fact alone would not confer victim status (paras. 529-531). It found that their medical conditions were not such that they could not be managed with available adaptation measures. Further, it held that victim status in relation to future risk is granted only exceptionally, and the applicants failed to demonstrate such exceptional circumstances (paras. 533-535). The Court appeared to base its finding primarily on the applicants’ advanced age, without adequately addressing their other claims regarding restrictions on their private lives. As previously held by Auner, the Court did not assess the two criteria separately but conducted a single overall assessment; thus, the judgment provides limited guidance on their interpretation and practical meaning. 

A similar criticism can be made for the Court’s assessment in Greenpeace Nordic v. Norway. The individual applicants claimed that they were uniquely vulnerable to the effects of climate change as members of the youth, who needed an urgent climate action to secure a habitable future as the impacts of climate change would be impacting them “over their entire lifetime”, and as active advocates who “lived with a heavier burden” (para. 185). Further, the Sámi applicants (nos. 2, 6, and 7) argued that climate change disproportionately threatened their traditional lands, resources, health, and practices, such as reindeer herding and cold-water fishing, which are central to their livelihoods, health, and cultural identity (para. 187). The applicants relied on reports by the Saami Council, the Sámi Parliament in Norway, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, and the Norwegian National Human Rights Institution, which documented observed and projected climate changes in the Arctic, the unique vulnerabilities of Arctic indigenous peoples, and threats to their subsistence livelihoods, food security, and cultural practices (paras. 188-192). These reports emphasized that climate change and related resource and energy developments disproportionately affect the Sámi, degrading their climate-sensitive ecosystems and further threatening reindeer herding and fishing practices (paras. 188-192). 

The Court found that the individual applicants’ claims of climate-related mental health impacts or life disruptions were unsupported by medical evidence and did not demonstrate specific health harms beyond what an aware young person in Norway might experience (paras. 304-305). There was no evidence of critical conditions that could not be managed through adaptation measures.

For the Sámi applicants, the Court recognized that climate change threatens their traditional way of life and subsistence practices (para. 303). Still, it found insufficient evidence that these harms personally affected them with the high intensity required for victim status (para. 306): 

While the Court fully appreciates that climate change poses a threat to the traditional Sámi way of life and culture (see paragraphs 187-192 above), it cannot conclude that the hardships that the situation complained about may be causing the three applicants personally are of “high intensity” (see paragraph 287 above).

The Test’s Inconsistency with the Climate Change Context

In both cases, the Court appears to impose a stringent threshold. It requires that the harms suffered by groups disproportionately impacted by climate change, such as elderly women, indigenous youth, and youth advocates, whose vulnerabilities are substantiated by empirical reports, must be sufficiently “personalized” to differentiate the individual claimants from the broader cohort to which they belong, and even surpass the potential harms anticipated for that group as a whole. It remains unclear how climate change could manifest effects on an individual to such a degree of individuation and divergence from the community it belongs. Notably, in the two highly specific instances presented before it, the Court declined to confer victim status. This position is seemingly inconsistent with the very nature of climate change. 

First, the effects of climate change are inherently societal in nature, rendering it implausible for them to impact a specific individual in a manner so markedly distinct from the remainder of their group as to satisfy the elevated threshold established by the Court. Climate change impacts communities through existing population levels, and no individual is affected in isolation from their demographic, geographic, and socioeconomic cohort. Effectively, scientific research (as exemplified here, here, here, and here) assesses the impacts of climate change on humans, not at the individual level, but at the societal level. More broadly, human vulnerability assessments tend to adopt a collective approach, evaluating vulnerability either through the identification of specific groups or on a geographical or regional basis, rather than on an individual basis.

Second, it becomes evident that the issue is not simply whether an individual is/will be adversely affected by climate change. Indeed, the Court acknowledges that the elderly, youth, and indigenous communities can experience more severe impacts of climate change. Yet in both cases, the Court’s inquiry effectively requires applicants from these “more vulnerable” groups to demonstrate that they are “even more vulnerable” than other members of their own communities. Put differently, the Court’s approach denies access to justice for individuals who, while clearly affected, are not the most severely impacted among those already harmed. 

Even in cases where the individual applicant presents documents demonstrating critical medical conditions as the Court mentions (Greenpeace Nordic v. Norway, para. 305), linking an individual’s medical report to emissions and generally the climate change phenomenon would be extremely difficult, once again, as scientific evidence often connects climate change impacts to societal harm rather than on singular individuals. 

Climate Litigation Implications

From the perspective of actio popularis, the ECtHR’s approach in KlimaSeniorinnen and Greenpeace Nordic distinguishes between associations and individual applicants. While individual claimants are denied victim status under the Court’s strict requirements, associations are granted legal standing to pursue climate claims on behalf of their members or other affected individuals (Greenpeace Nordic v. Norway, para. 312; KlimaSeniorinnen, paras. 521-526). 

The Court imposes specific criteria also for associations to ensure that legal standing is not granted indiscriminately. Considering the unique considerations of climate change, the role of associations in domestic climate litigation, the need to avoid actio popularis, and the Aarhus Convention, the Court found that associations may bring climate change claims under certain conditions (paras. 521-526). In particular, an applicant association must: (a) be lawfully established in the relevant jurisdiction or have standing to act there; (b) demonstrate that it pursues a dedicated purpose in accordance with its statutory objectives in defending the human rights of its members or other affected individuals within the jurisdiction, including through collective action against climate threats; and (c) show that it is genuinely qualified and representative to act on behalf of members or other affected individuals facing specific threats or adverse effects of climate change on their lives, health, or well-being as protected under the Convention. 

The Court itself confirms that such conferral of victim status on associations is an exceptional departure from its ordinary understanding of Article 34. In Cannavaciuolo and Others v. Italy, it held that associations cannot claim victim status under Articles 2 and 8 where the alleged harm relates to life, health or physical integrity, interests that can only be suffered by natural persons (para. 216). Notably, the applicants’ allegations in KlimaSeniorinnen and Greenpeace Nordic were also framed under these very articles. The Court therefore emphasised that its deviation from this rule in its KlimaSeniorinnen judgment was justified by the “specific considerations relating to climate change” as a “common concern for humankind”, and for the purpose of “promoting intergenerational burden-sharing” (para. 220). Examining the Court’s rationale for granting victim status to associations, it remains uncertain how the reliance on the notion of a “common concern of humankind” and the distinction it draws between associations and individuals actually serves to prevent actio popularis. If the aim is to avoid abstract public interest litigation, the Court’s approach appears internally inconsistent: while it sets even higher bars for individuals who actually demonstrate a certain, specific harm,  it simultaneously extends victim status to associations, which are incapable of suffering such harm, on the premise that climate change constitutes a “common concern”. 

This framework for climate change applications seems to channel climate litigation toward representative actions. By funnelling climate claims through institutional proxies, the Court risks transforming Article 8 and Article 2 disputes into abstract policy reviews rather than concrete human rights adjudications. In the end, the Convention’s core guarantee is individual petition. Although the Court strives to prevent actio popularis applications, it must acknowledge that the very nature of climate change litigation necessitates a modest expansion beyond strictly individualized harm. Indeed, while individual applications in climate cases can yield positive outcomes with societal-wide impact, they simultaneously serve to avert adverse effects experienced at the level of the specific individual, as an integral component of the broader collective harm, thus retaining their inherently personal character.