The Court has declared inadmissible the application in the case of Fliegenschnee and Others v. Austria.

The case concerned the Austrian Federal Minister for Economic and Digital Affairs’ refusal to ban the sale of fossil fuels to mitigate the impact of climate change as she was not competent in that regard.

The Court found that the three individual applicants who had brought the case had not provided evidence to show that they had been personally affected by climate change, either because of their age or health issues or owing to crop shortfalls caused by drought. They could not therefore claim to be victims of a violation of the right to respect for private and family life or the protection of property and those complaints were inadmissible.

As concerned the remaining applicant, Umweltschutzorganisation Global 2000, the Court considered that it was not necessary to decide whether it had standing to bring its complaints under Article 8 of the Convention because they were inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded. In particular Article 8 did not guarantee the right to a specific measure, namely a ban on the sale of fossil fuels under the Austrian Trade Act.

• Press release