The kids who sued America over climate change aren’t done yet

In 2015, nearly two dozen young Americans continued the federal government, alleging that the United States had violated its constitutional rights by facilitating the fire of fossil fuel and allowing greenhouse gas emissions to increase at dangerous levels. Their case, known as Juliana v. They were rejected by federal courts, but has inspired dozens of prosecution for young climate, including successful climatic affairs in Montana and Hawaiʻi.

Now, 15 of these same complainants of Juliana, including four indigenous complainants, take their case internationally in the hope that the world community will put pressure on the United States government to act.

Last week, they filed a request to the Inter -American Commission on Human Rights, a commission of seven members who, for decades, evaluated human rights violations in 35 countries of the Americas. Kelly Matheson, lawyer for our children’s trust who has worked on the petition, said the case concerns “the relentless perpetuation by the US government of an energy fossil combustible energy system despite more than 50 years that fossil fuel emissions were catastrophic for human rights.”

The complainants include Jaime Butler, who was forced to leave the Navajo nation reserve in 2011 due to the dryness and the shortage of water, and in 2014 had to evacuate his house in Flagstaff, Arizona, to escape the forest fire of Oak Creek Canyon.

“She remembers the times when there was enough water on the reserve for agriculture and farm animals, but now the springs they formerly depended on the whole year are dried up, and it is no longer possible to engage in traditional agricultural activities which once supported its community,” said the petition. “She fears for her family members, who all live in the reserve, which will also be moved from their lands, which will still erode her culture and his way of life and will disrupt her family and community relationships.”

The Navajo nation declared an emergency of drought in June and the problem should worsen.

Their petition cites a recent opinion from the Inter -American Human Rights Court which concluded that the climate crisis threatens the rights of indigenous peoples, including their right to cultural life, and lists several Aboriginal complainants like Butler whose land and waters were injured by a warming atmosphere. “These are only examples of the many violations of cultural rights suffered by Aboriginal young people in the United States from its fossil energy system and the climate pollution it creates,” said the petition.

The petition of the complainants of Juliana does not only ask the Commission to decide whether the rights of young people have been violated, but also to issue recommendations in the United States concerning climate change.

Maria Antonia Tigre, director of world disputes on climate change at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, said that he could sometimes take a decade for the Commission to return the decisions. However, she said that the case is still important because the Commission is the only international forum available to challenge the United States on its climate policies. “This is another way for that to be part of the speech and show that something is done on this subject and that there is a responsibility, even if it takes a while,” she said.

Several international courts, including the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, have made decisions concluding that countries have the obligation to mitigate climate change, but the United States has long rejected their jurisdiction.

During his first eight months in power, President Donald Trump also withdrew the United States from numerous agreements and organizations related to the United Nations climate, in particular by stopping the financing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and denied the 2015 Paris Agreement, a major climate treaty which sought to limit the seriousness of global warming. But the United States is still a member of the Organization of American States, a regional network of 35 countries of the Americas which was created in 1948 to promote peace, democracy and development. The Inter -American Commission on Human Rights, where the petition of the complainants of Juliana was filed, was established within the framework of the regional network to promote and protect human rights.

The Trump administration has also sought to end data collection on greenhouseCut funding for the interior climate and fueled climate denial.

“This” climate change “is the biggest con-work ever perpetrated in the world,” Trump told the United Nations last week. “All these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong. They were made by stupid people who cost their country to their country and who gave these same countries, no chance of success. If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country will fail. ”

The United States is an aberrant value in this climate perspective. The global community has long recognized the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by the combustion of fossil fuels and that the production of less greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to stem the global warming. “Climate change is an unprecedented challenge for civilizational proportions,” said the United Nations General Assembly in a resolution supported by more than 100 countries two years ago. “The well-being of current and future generations of humanity depends on our immediate and urgent response.”

A favorable decision of the Inter -American Commission on Human Rights would establish a precedent from Canada to Patagonia, said Matheson, and would be added to an increasing consensus in international courts that countries have the legal obligation to fight against the climate crisis.

“Do we understand that the Trump administration will not take this seriously? Yes. Do we understand that the Trump administration will not respect the recommendations or decisions authorizing these bodies? Yes, but the next administration could,” she said.

“In the long term, it could help,” said Matheson about the United States “whatever happens, it will help worldwide.”