On 9 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights decided its first ever climate cases: Verein Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland, Carême v. France, and Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others. In these landmark cases plaintiffs sued 33 European governments, including the entire European Union, for their failure to adequately curb greenhouse gas emissions. The Court held in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland that government inaction can violate human rights, while it rejected the latter two cases as inadmissible. These rulings will shape Europe’s response to climate change and are expected to inspire future climate litigation across the globe.
Please join us for a panel discussion, featuring Aminta Ossom, Angela Hefti, and Tyler Giannini to explore what these cases mean for climate mitigation in Europe and beyond. The panel will be moderated by Jessie Hsia LLM ‘24.
Lunch will be provided.
Panelists
Aminta Ossom is a Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor in Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), where she supervises projects focused on human rights and the global economy. As part of a portfolio on climate change and socio-economic inequality, she oversaw research for When the Water Runs Dry: Human Rights, Climate Change, and Deepening Water Inequality in Delhi, India. She has also co-authored an article on health inequity and climate change litigation forthcoming in the Harvard Human Rights Journal.
Angela Hefti is a Visiting Researcher (Post-Doc) at Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program. Angela holds a PhD in Law on femicide as a human rights violation from the University of Lucerne in Switzerland and an LL.M. from Yale Law School. Angela’s research is on human rights responses to climate change through a feminist legal lens. Angela contributed to the KlimaSeniorinnen plaintiffs’ application to the European Court of Human Rights.
Tyler Giannini is a Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and the director of the law school’s Human Rights Entrepreneurs Clinic. Giannini’s work focuses on international accountability litigation, business and human rights as well as climate change and human rights. He has extensive experience with Myanmar and South Africa and strong interests in social entrepreneurship and community-centric approaches to human rights practice. Prior to joining Harvard Law School, he was a founder and director of EarthRights International, an organization at the forefront of efforts to link human rights and environmental protection.
Moderator
Jessie Hsia is a current LLM student from Taiwan. She received her JD from the University of Hong Kong, after which she worked at an NGO in Hong Kong creating and operating user-centric tech solutions for Migrant Workers in Asia to combat debt bondage and illegal recruitment. Prior to studying law, Jessie was a coffee entrepreneur in New York, specializing in coffee from Asia. Her current interests are exploring the opportunities at the intersection of business, law, technology, and social impact.
Cosponsored by the HLS Human Rights Entrepreneurs and Incubator Clinic, Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, International Human Rights Clinic, Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World, HLS Advocates for Human Rights and Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics.