CYIL vol. 14 (2023)

TOMÁŠ BRUNER CYIL 14 (2023) Ministries to adopt measures that would reduce GHG emissions by 55 % until 2030 in comparison with 1990. The decision of the Municipal Court as well as the Supreme Administrative Court contained thorough legal argumentation built on detailed legal reasoning and a review of doctrinal (academic) outcomes. Thus, the difference in these decisions concerning mitigation measures marks an important clash of two values. The principle that the courts should intervene in political and legislative processes as little as possible, as advocated by the Supreme Administrative Court, stood against the urgent need for an action addressing climate change, proposed by the Municipal Court. Although the Supreme Administrative Court acknowledged this urgent need several times in its judgement, it departed from the position that this need does not outweigh the division of labour between judiciary, legislative, and executive powers: the legislative and the executive should be left with sufficient time and space to do their work. From the international law perspective, this position and the five points above should be taken as a contribution to ongoing debates rather than a final resolution of these debates. The following lines explain that recent decisions of climate litigations sometimes align with and sometimes differ from these five points. The reason at hand is that courts and commissions oscillate between the two clashing principles above. The Czech case is unique as far as the point 2 is concerned. It deals with the nature of collective EU NDC as opposed to the sufficiency of simple individual country obligation to reduce emissions that was disputed in the Urgenda Case and similar “systemic climate litigations” against foreign governments 46 . But despite its focus on the EU NDC, the Supreme Administrative Court also addressed important general questions. First and foremost, it argued 47 that the court cannot review the sufficiency of the individual state NDC, this must be done by the Conference of the Parties of the Paris Agreement. This opinion collides with conclusions from the Urgenda case, where the Dutch courts found the governmental obligations to reduce GHG emissions by certain percentage insufficient. Similarly, in January 2023, the South Korean National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) 48 suggested that the South Korean NDC of 40% prescribed by the national legislation is insufficient, because it fails to meet the “target set out in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report in 2022 (43% of 2019 emissions by 2030). In addition, the [national law] does not specify GHG reduction targets beyond 2030… The NHRC required the government to set additional GHG reduction targets.” 49 The decision is non-binding and contains political rather than legal appeal. However, similarly to Urgenda Case, it expects that Article 2 of the Paris Agreement is self-executing and can be interpreted together with 46 HIGHAM, C., SETZER, J. Global trends in climate change litigation: 2023 snapshot . London: Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and Centre for Climate Change Economics and 48 The Views of the National Human Rights Commission expressed to the Republic of Korea (1 January 1993), Original document and unofficial English translation available at the website of Sabin Center for Climate Change Law (3 August 2023), available at: http://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/opinion-of-the-national human-rights-commission-on-the-climate-crisis-and-human-rights/. 49 Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Opinion of the National Human Rights Commission on the climate crisis and human rights (5 September 2023). Available at: http://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/opinion-of the-national-human-rights-commission-on-the-climate-crisis-and-human-rights/. Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, p. 5. 47 The Judgement no. 9 As 116/2022 – 166, p. 35, para 118.

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