Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States

The document details a legal challenge brought by six Portuguese children against Portugal and 32 other European states before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The applicants argue that the states' failure to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C violates their rights to life, privacy, and protection from discrimination. The ECtHR has fast-tracked the case and, on its own initiative, included Article 3 (prohibiting inhuman and degrading treatment) as a possible violation due to the severity of climate impacts on the applicants.

• Six Portuguese children allege that Portugal and 32 other European states violated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by not taking sufficient measures to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C, as agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
• The applicants claim that the respondent states are in breach of ECHR Article 2 (right to life), Article 8 (right to privacy and a healthy environment), and Article 14 (protection from discrimination), arguing that the consequences of rising temperatures will be disproportionately borne by their generation.
• The applicants argue they are victims of climate change due to direct exposure to intense storms and forest fires in Portugal, which they link to increased heatwaves and droughts caused by global temperature rises. These events have caused health issues, including breathing difficulties and allergies, and increased anxiety.
• The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) fast-tracked the application and independently added Article 3 (prohibiting torture and inhuman and degrading treatment) to the complaint, suggesting that the effects of global warming may meet the threshold of severity for ill-treatment.
• The applicants bypassed the requirement to exhaust domestic remedies in all 33 respondent states, arguing that doing so would be an unreasonable and disproportionate burden and too time-consuming given the urgency of global warming.

APA

Contributor, C. (2022). Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States. ClimaTalk. https://climatalk.org/2022/05/28/duarte-agostinho-and-others-v-portugal-and-32-other-states/

Chicago

Contributor, ClimaTalk. Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States. ClimaTalk, 2022. https://climatalk.org/2022/05/28/duarte-agostinho-and-others-v-portugal-and-32-other-states/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Contributor |first1=ClimaTalk |title=Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States |publisher=ClimaTalk |date=28 May 2022 |url=https://climatalk.org/2022/05/28/duarte-agostinho-and-others-v-portugal-and-32-other-states/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{contributor2022duarte, author = {Contributor, ClimaTalk}, title = {{Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States}}, institution = {ClimaTalk}, year = {2022}, month = may, url = {https://climatalk.org/2022/05/28/duarte-agostinho-and-others-v-portugal-and-32-other-states/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }