In 2015, almost two dozen American youth sued the federal government, claiming that the United States violated their constitutional rights, facilitating the burning of fossil fuel and allowing greenhouse gases to rise to dangerous levels. Their case, known as Juliana against the United States, was dismissed in federal courts, but inspired dozens of court lawsuits about the climate of youth, including the successful cases of climate in Montana and Hawaii.
Now 15 of the same Hyulianian plaintiffs, including four indigenous plaintiffs, take their business at the international level in the hope that the global community will give pressure on the US government.
Last week they gave a petition to Mezhamerican Human Rights CommissionA commission of seven people, which for decades evaluated human rights violations in 35 countries of America. Kelly Matison, the lawyer of our children, worked on the petition, said that the matter concerns the “unusual perpetuating of the US government of the US Government Systems of fossil fuel energy, despite more than 50 years that emissions of fossil fuel are disastrous for human rights.”
The plaintiffs include Haime Batler, who was forced to move away from the reservation of the National National Country in 2011 from a lack of drought and water, and in 2014 was supposed to evacuate her house in flagstaff, Arizona, to avoid the wild fire of the OK -Krick Canyon.
“She remembers the times when there was enough water in the reservation for agriculture and agricultural animals, but now the sources that they once depended, dry, and it is more impossible to participate in traditional agricultural events that once supported her community,” the petition says. “She is afraid for members of her family, all of whom live in reservations, which will also be moved from their land, which even more destroys its culture and lifestyle and violate the connections of its family and community.”
Navajo nation declared an emergency in June And the problem is expected to worsen.
Their petition leads to the recent opinion of the Mezhamerican Court of Human Rights, in which the threat of indigenous peoples came to the climatic crisis, including their right to cultural life, and lists several indigenous plaintiffs, such as a batler, whose lands and water suffered from warming. “These are just examples of many violations of the cultural rights that the youth of the indigenous population faces throughout the United States, from its system of fossil fuel energy and climate pollution, which it creates,” the petition says.
The petition of the plaintiff Juliana asks the commission not only to decide whether the rights of youth were violated, but also to issue the US recommendations regarding climate change.
Maria Anthony Tiger, director for global trial on climate change in the Sabinsky Center, under the law on climate change at the Law School of Colombia, said that sometimes the commission may take a decade to make decisions. Nevertheless, she said that the case is still significant, because the commission is the only international forum that the United States can challenge in the field of climate policy. “This is another way to be part of the discourse and show that something is being done with this, and there is responsibility, even if it takes some time,” she said.
Several international courts, including the International Court, the International Tribunal under the Legislation of the Sea and the Mezhamerikan Court of Human Rights, issued decisions, concluding that countries are required to mitigate climate change, but the United States has long rejected their jurisdiction.
In the first eight months of his stay, President Donald Trump also pulled out the United States from many Climate agreements and organizations of the United Nations, including the termination of the UN Framework Convention to change the climate, and intervened in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the main climatic agreement that sought to limit the severity of global warming. But the United States is still a member Organization of American statesThe regional network from 35 countries in America, which was created in 1948 to assist the world, democracy and development. A Mezhamerican Human Rights CommissionWhere the petition was submitted from the plaintiffs of Julian, it was installed as part of the regional network on the assistance and protection of human rights.
Trump administration also sought to put an end to collecting data on greenhouse gasesReduce financing for internal climate research and fed climate denial.
“This is a“ climate change ”, this is the greatest work when the liba is perfect in the world”, Trump He said in the United Nations last weekThe field “All these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for poor reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people who cost their countries, and did not give the same countries, having no chance of success. If you do not kill from this green fraud, your country will fail. ”
The USA is an emission at this point of view on the climate. The global community has long recognized the scientific consent that climate change was caused by the burning of fossil fuel and that in order to create a smaller number of greenhouse gas emissions, it is necessary to stop the warming of the planet. “Climate change is an unprecedented problem of civilizational proportions”, the UN General Assembly He said in the resolution Supported more than 100 countries two years ago. “The well -being of the current and future generations of mankind depends on our direct and urgent answer to it.”
A favorable solution Mezhamerican Human Rights Commission According to Matison, it will establish a precedent from Canada to Patagonia, and add to the growing consensus in international courts that the countries have a legal obligation to fight the climatic crisis.
“Do we understand that the Trump administration does not perceive it seriously? Yes. Do we understand that the Trump administration will not follow the recommendations or authoritative decisions of these bodies? Yes, but the next administration can, ”she said.
“In the long run, this can help,” Matison said about the USA: “Regardless of the fact that this will help all over the world.”
