Weekly Human Rights News: 25/04/2025

Tuesday 22 April was Earth Day, and to mark the occasion we added a new case study to our bank of human rights stories in real life, showing how climate change can be a human rights issue. 

Back in 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) heard a legal case brought against the Swiss Government by a group of climate activists from an organisation called Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz (“Senior Women for Climate Protection Switzerland”). The court found that their right to private and family life (Article 8, HRA) had been breached because the Government had failed to take positive steps to mitigate the effects of climate change, such as through measuring greenhouse gas emission. 

This important case brought climate change into the realm of human rights law, after a number of related cases had been coming before the ECtHR. This case shows there are situations where issues relating to climate change can impact on people’s human rights, and that the state has duties to tackle this impact. The Court did not say exactly what measures should be taken to protect rights in this arena, as this will vary from nation to nation. This is in line with the principle of the margin of appreciation, which recognises there needs to be some space for countries to implement human rights protections when not all ECHR countries agree on specific actions.    

ECtHR: Mother whose parental authority was quickly terminated suffered violation of Article 8 rights | Scottish Legal News 

Nathanie is a Dutch woman who had sole parental authority for her two-year-old daughter. They were living in supported housing run by a care provider, where they were only supposed to have supervised visits with the child's father because of a history of domestic violence. However, they continued to see him unsupervised. The care provider said Nathanie was not cooperating with them and so she and her daughter would have to leave the supported housing. They were placed in a short-stay crisis centre but left early because Nathalie said she did not feel safe there.  

The Dutch authorities were concerned that Nathanie suffered from stress and mood swings and was not able to provide her daughter with stable parenting. The authorities got an emergency care order allowing them to take the child into foster care, where Nathanie would be allowed a supervised visit once per week. They also got a court order  saying Nathanie and her daughter should move to a mother-and-child facility with round-the-clock supervision.  

However, Nathanie did not agree to this. The authorities said this meant that Nathanie's daughter's future was with the foster family rather than Nathanie. This was just four months after she had first gone into care. 

The authorities later applied for a court order terminating Nathanie's parental rights altogether, which was granted by Dutch courts. Nathanie appealed this and ultimately took a case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). 

The ECtHR found that Nathanie's Article 8 right to private and family life had been breached - saying the Dutch authorities and courts "gave up family reunification as the ultimate goal at a very early stage, without a proper assessment of the applicant’s parenting capacity and without adequately demonstrating why the ultimate aim of reunification was no longer compatible with the child’s best interests." The ECtHR has ordered the Netherlands to pay €20,000 to Nathanie in damages.  

Stephen Lawrence Day occurred this week, marked on April 22nd every year, the anniversary of Stephen’s death, in racist killing. As the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation notes a national moment of reflection and a call to action, and this year's theme is knowledge changes everything.  
 
Stephen's family's lawyer Imran Khan KC, is our Chair of the Board of Trustees, and we know how not having the Human Rights Act at the time made, and still makes, holding the authorities to account for the failings into his killing so much harder.  
 
On the theme of knowledge changes everything, racial justice is one of the consistent themes in our community programme. We're working directly with groups to use the tools of human rights law to meet everyday injustices and discriminations - changing people's experiences and the systems through human rights knowledge and action.  
 
From our 2024-5 partnerships, find out more about: