Hazhar Jamali

Climate change is increasingly being addressed through human rights litigation, with courts recognizing that inadequate climate action can violate fundamental rights. Yet an important question remains: what happens after a court delivers its judgment? Do these decisions lead to meaningful climate action, or do they remain largely symbolic?

Human rights law is established on the premise that whenever a violation is found, there should be an effective remedy that can address it. Hazhar’s project examines how such remedies—the specific actions courts order in response to a rights violation, such as compensation, policy change, or new legislation—contribute to real-world climate action. Through a comparative analysis of landmark climate cases, such as KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland, in which a group of Swiss senior women successfully argued before the European Court of Human Rights that the Swiss state's inadequate climate action endangered their rights to life and health, he will investigate whether judicial decisions lead to legislative reforms, policy changes, or other measures that mitigate or adapt to climate change.

Combining legal analysis with insights from political science, sociology, and economics, the project seeks to identify the conditions under which human rights litigation can effectively support climate governance. By focusing on the implementation and impact of judicial remedies, the project aims to strengthen our understanding of the role of human rights law in addressing one of the defining challenges of our time.