COMMUNICATION TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD In the case of CHIARA SACCHI (Argentina); CATARINA LORENZO (Brazil); IRIS DUQUESNE (France); RAINA IVANOVA (Germany); RIDHIMA PANDEY (India); DAVID ACKLEY, III, RANTON ANJAIN, AND LITOKNE KABUA (Marshall Islands); DEBORAH ADEGBILE (Nigeria); CARLOS MANUEL (Palau); AYAKHA MELITHAFA (South Africa); GRETA THUNBERG (Sweden); RASLEN JBEILI (Tunisia); & CARL SMITH AND ALEXANDRIA VILLASEÑOR (USA); Petitioners, V. ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, FRANCE, GERMANY & TURKEY, Respondents

The document is a formal petition by sixteen children from various countries against five states, alleging that their failure to mitigate climate change violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It details specific harms faced by the petitioners—including extreme heat, wildfires, and sea-level rise—and argues that the respondents' current emission pathways are inconsistent with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement. The petitioners request that the Committee recognize climate change as a children's rights crisis and recommend that the respondent states accelerate mitigation efforts and prioritize the best interests of children.

• The petitioners argue that the respondents are violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child by failing to protect the rights to life (Article 6), health (Article 24), and culture (Article 30), and by failing to make the best interests of the child a primary consideration (Article 3).
• The document asserts that the five respondent states are not on emission pathways consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C or even 3°C, and that their current policies would lead to catastrophic warming if replicated globally.
• The petition highlights specific physical and mental harms experienced by the children, including asthma exacerbated by air pollution in Nigeria and the US, dengue fever in the Marshall Islands, and climate anxiety and depression in Sweden.
• Climate change is identified as an existential threat to the cultural and subsistence practices of indigenous petitioners, specifically affecting reindeer herding for the Sami in Sweden and hunting/fishing for the Yupiaq in Alaska.
• The respondents are accused of failing their duty to cooperate internationally, specifically by not using their influence as G20 members to compel major emitters like China, the US, the EU, and India to decarbonize.
• The document claims that the respondents have known about the foreseeable consequences of climate change for decades, citing the establishment of the IPCC in 1988 and the 1992 Climate Change Convention.
• The petitioners argue that they fall under the jurisdiction of all five respondent states because the states' domestic and cross-border carbon emissions cause foreseeable harm to them regardless of their nationality.
• The petition requests that the Committee find climate change to be a 'children's rights crisis' and recommend that states amend laws to accelerate mitigation based on the best available science.

APA

Earthjustice (2019). COMMUNICATION TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD In the case of CHIARA SACCHI (Argentina); CATARINA LORENZO (Brazil); IRIS DUQUESNE (France); RAINA IVANOVA (Germany); RIDHIMA PANDEY (India); DAVID ACKLEY, III, RANTON ANJAIN, AND LITOKNE KABUA (Marshall Islands); DEBORAH ADEGBILE (Nigeria); CARLOS MANUEL (Palau); AYAKHA MELITHAFA (South Africa); GRETA THUNBERG (Sweden); RASLEN JBEILI (Tunisia); & CARL SMITH AND ALEXANDRIA VILLASEÑOR (USA); Petitioners, V. ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, FRANCE, GERMANY & TURKEY, Respondents. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019.09.23-crc-communication-sacchi-et-al-v.-argentina-et-al-redacted.pdf

Chicago

Earthjustice. COMMUNICATION TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD In the case of CHIARA SACCHI (Argentina); CATARINA LORENZO (Brazil); IRIS DUQUESNE (France); RAINA IVANOVA (Germany); RIDHIMA PANDEY (India); DAVID ACKLEY, III, RANTON ANJAIN, AND LITOKNE KABUA (Marshall Islands); DEBORAH ADEGBILE (Nigeria); CARLOS MANUEL (Palau); AYAKHA MELITHAFA (South Africa); GRETA THUNBERG (Sweden); RASLEN JBEILI (Tunisia); & CARL SMITH AND ALEXANDRIA VILLASEÑOR (USA); Petitioners, V. ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, FRANCE, GERMANY & TURKEY, Respondents. 2019. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019.09.23-crc-communication-sacchi-et-al-v.-argentina-et-al-redacted.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Earthjustice |title=COMMUNICATION TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD In the case of CHIARA SACCHI (Argentina); CATARINA LORENZO (Brazil); IRIS DUQUESNE (France); RAINA IVANOVA (Germany); RIDHIMA PANDEY (India); DAVID ACKLEY, III, RANTON ANJAIN, AND LITOKNE KABUA (Marshall Islands); DEBORAH ADEGBILE (Nigeria); CARLOS MANUEL (Palau); AYAKHA MELITHAFA (South Africa); GRETA THUNBERG (Sweden); RASLEN JBEILI (Tunisia); & CARL SMITH AND ALEXANDRIA VILLASEÑOR (USA); Petitioners, V. ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, FRANCE, GERMANY & TURKEY, Respondents |date=23 September 2019 |url=https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019.09.23-crc-communication-sacchi-et-al-v.-argentina-et-al-redacted.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{earthjustice2019communication, author = {{Earthjustice}}, title = {{COMMUNICATION TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD In the case of CHIARA SACCHI (Argentina); CATARINA LORENZO (Brazil); IRIS DUQUESNE (France); RAINA IVANOVA (Germany); RIDHIMA PANDEY (India); DAVID ACKLEY, III, RANTON ANJAIN, AND LITOKNE KABUA (Marshall Islands); DEBORAH ADEGBILE (Nigeria); CARLOS MANUEL (Palau); AYAKHA MELITHAFA (South Africa); GRETA THUNBERG (Sweden); RASLEN JBEILI (Tunisia); \& CARL SMITH AND ALEXANDRIA VILLASEÑOR (USA); Petitioners, V. ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, FRANCE, GERMANY \& TURKEY, Respondents}}, institution = {Earthjustice}, year = {2019}, month = sep, url = {https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019.09.23-crc-communication-sacchi-et-al-v.-argentina-et-al-redacted.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }