This project explores how regional human rights courts in Europe and Latin America interpret intergenerational justice obligations in the context of climate change, conceived as the temporal distribution of burdens and benefits and the protection of structurally vulnerable groups, and how these interpretations affect democratic resilience. Through a functional and contextual analysis, it examines the KlimaSeniorinnen case before the ECtHR and Advisory Opinion 32/25 of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, identifying convergences and divergences in their standards as well as in the political and social responses they generate.
The project investigates how climate litigation can reinforce the legitimacy and resilience of democracy and help prevent democratic backsliding by promoting decisions that are intertemporally oriented, inclusive, and participatory. Such decisions can counter political short termism and integrate socio-environmental vulnerabilities into economic and social planning. This requires rethinking the role of time in democratic theory: political processes must respond to present needs while also securing minimum guarantees for the future, particularly for groups in situations of vulnerability. The project therefore examines how law can mediate tensions between long term environmental goals and social equity, contributing to a more robust democracy in the face of the climate crisis.
Project Allies
Region / Focus
Europa + América Latina, clima
Bibliography
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Corina Heri
Corina Heri is Assistant Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Tilburg University. She previously held positions at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Zurich. Her research focuses on human rights and climate change, the role of courts in strategic and public interest litigation, and the relationship between law and vulnerability.
Linnéa Nordlander
Linnéa Nordlander is an Assistant Professor at the University of Copenhagen. Her research examines how human rights law can drive state action on climate change, with a focus on litigation at the international and regional levels.
Edward Pérez
Edward Pérez is a PhD candidate at University College London. He previously worked as a lawyer at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Center for Reproductive Rights. His doctoral research focuses on structural remedies ordered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Stefanía Rainaldi
Stefanía Rainaldi is a PhD candidate at Queen Mary University of London and Graduate Teaching Assistant in Public Law. Her doctoral thesis addresses structural discrimination and poverty. She has also worked as a consultant for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
Thalia Viveros
Thalia Viveros is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and a postdoctoral researcher in the TransLitigate Project at Tilburg University. She holds a PhD in Global Inclusion and Social Development from the University of Massachusetts Boston.
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