assess the harmful effects of climate change and as benchmarks for determining the content of states’ obligations. This hermeneutical approach fits into the broader framework of the ECtHR’s established practice of dynamic and evolutionary interpretation. This methodology is justified both by the structural gaps in the ECHR system in relation to climate-specific challenges and by the need to ensure effective protection under the Convention in the face of new environmental threats. As the Grand Chamber itself stated, “the Convention should be interpreted, as far as possible, in harmony with other rules of international law,” adding that “a failure by the Court to maintain a dynamic and evolutive approach would risk rendering it a bar to reform or improvement.” This interpretive paradigm proves particularly necessary given the Court’s acknowledgment that its traditional environmental jurisprudence has significant limitations in addressing climate-related issues. Therefore, while valuing established precedents, the Grand Chamber deemed it essential to develop an approach specifically tailored to the unique characteristics of climate change, one that “acknowledges and takes into account the particularities of climate change and is tailored to addressing its specific characteristics.” The ECtHR’s methodology is particularly innovative from an interpretive standpoint. Recognizing the inadequacy of its traditional environmental case law to deal with the specificities of climate change, the Grand Chamber developed an interpretive approach specifically calibrated to the peculiarities of the phenomenon. These include: the absence of a specific source of harm, as damage results from aggregated emissions from multiple sources; the fact that greenhouse gases are not inherently toxic at ordinary concentrations, yet cause harm through a complex chain of effects; the transboundary nature of emissions; the temporal and spatial unpredictability of harmful effects; and the origin of emissions in essential human activities such as industry, energy, transportation, construction, and agriculture. During the same period in 2024, the Grand Chamber reviewed two other significant cases, though both were dismissed as inadmissible. In Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and Other States, young Portuguese applicants sued Portugal and several other ECHR state parties for violating their fundamental rights due to the impact of anthropogenic climate change37.The application was dismissed due to the applicants’ failure to exhaust domestic remedies in Portugal, 37 ECtHR, Grand Chamber, 9 April 2024, Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and Others, appl. no. 39371/20, available at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-233259. 136 GINEVRA GELSOMINI
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