CYIL vol. 14 (2023)

CYIL 14 (2023) FIRST CZECH CLIMATE LITIGATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF INTERNATIONAL … that this collective EU NDC under Article 4 of the Paris Agreement contains the collective as well as the individual obligations. According to the Supreme Administrative Court, the EU NDC contains only a collective obligation and cannot be applicable on an individual country basis. Further division of the collective 55% target among individual Member States shall be done by the EU. The courts are not entitled to assess whether the EU NDC is sufficient – this is the task for the Conference of the Parties of the Paris Agreement. Similarly, the courts cannot prescribe how the EU NDC target will be met, with which deadlines and measures and whether the progress in achieving this target is sufficient. This shall be done by the EU, especially through its secondary legislation, while the assessment of progress shall be done by the EU Commission. Premature interference of courts in this process could deprive the legislative and executive powers of their privileges and thus eliminate their space for negotiations and decisions. The Supreme Administrative court referred to analogical conclusions of the 2005 ECJ case Léon Van Parys NV v Belgisch Interventie- en Restitutiebureau (C-377/02). 35 The Article 4(18) of the Paris Agreement prescribes that the State Parties that submitted its NDC through a regional organisation shall be responsible “individually, and together with the regional economic integration organisation”. However, this does not imply that the collective obligation shall be equally distributed among EU Member States. Each Member State may be consequently committed to different contributions in different sectors. 36 Judicial review of the legislative and executive adoption and performance of specific measures should be done by the ECJ. 37 The Czech Ministries were thus not bound by the Paris Agreement read together with the EU NDC to reduce GHG emissions by 55% at the time of Court’s decision. Only certain older obligations could be applicable on them. The Supreme Administrative Court also reviewed whether an imperative of emission reduction could be derived from Czech international human rights obligations. The Court argued that these obligations are too general to provide a basis for such imperative. Neither the right to a favourable environment nor the right to climate stability had been embedded in international human rights obligations of the Czech Republic to the extent which would justify adoption of specific measures. The possibility to define such rights in greater detail had only been discussed. Climate change was considered a threat to the right to life and to other human rights. Certain requirements for a favourable environment had been derived from established human rights. The European Court of Human Rights interpreted Article 2 (right to life) and Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Human Rights Convention in a way that they might establish certain entitlements in regard to the environment. Such “human rights greening” however had important limits. Individual human rights could not solve the global problem of climate change and even the ECtHR had never proclaimed that Article 2 or 8 of the European Human Rights Convention would be violated by insufficient mitigation measures. 38

35 Ibid., pp. 34, 35, paras 116, 118–119. 36 Ibid., pp. 36–37, para 125. 37 Ibid., p. 38, para 129. 38 Ibid., p. 43, paras 150–151.

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