Successful unsuccessful children’s rights climate cases? Lessons learned from the Sacchi and Agostinho cases or the power of a non-judicial body

In October 2021, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (hereinafter: CRC Committee) published its ʻlandmarkʼ decision on a complaint brought by sixteen children and young people, including iconic climate activist Greta Thunberg, against five G20 countries – Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey. The young petitioners filed their claim to the CRC Committee under the so-called Third Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereinafter: Third Optional Protocol) on a communications procedure. Although the CRC Committee ultimately found the complaint inadmissible for lack of exhaustion of domestic remedies, the decision is nevertheless groundbreaking as it established for the first time as an international human rights body that a State Party can be held accountable for the negative effects of its carbon emissions on children’s rights both within and outside its territory. The petition and the CRC Committee’s decision also confirmed that the climate crisis is also a children’s rights crisis, thus defining the scope of interpretation – and analysis – of this issue in relation to children’s rights. In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter ECtHR or Court) handed down its first climate judgments, alongside two other decisions, in the case of Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and Others, brought by six Portuguese young people against 32 Council of Europe Member States, which was also eventually declared inadmissible. Despite the obvious differences between the two forum systems, the common core issues make the two decisions comparable. Despite the ‘negative’ outcome, both decisions are of crucial importance in relation to children’s rights and the environment, despite their different reasoning, merits and the different nature and attitudes of the adjudicating bodies.