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Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

swissinfo.ch

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Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#71
post #68
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you haven't understood that direct democracy works by convincing fellow citicens to vote for a new idea or direction. People are critical, especially if the new idea or direction restricts their comfort. So you can't just claim anything, you have to win trust with authority and evidence. But it seems that this committee would rather go to court than convince fellow citizens of the validity of their arguments.

Democracy is also vulnerable to the tyranny of the majority, apathy, disenfranchisement, and multiple concerns that compete for head space. It's also slow, and the legal system exists specifically to address concerns like this. If a cop is busting heads, you don't wait to elect a new sheriff, you bring a lawsuit to fix the acute problem. If a department is systematically harming a group, you can try to elect someone…

> Democracy is also vulnerable to the tyranny of the majority

Democracy is about the majority; and in Switzerland - in contrast to most other democracies - it's the majority of the real population, not just an elite class, and the people directly decide about real problems, not just who should represent them. And there are even provisions which assure that local concerns are sufficiently considered. You should inform yourself about this great political system.

> Using the legal system to prevent acute harm is both correct and reasonable

In the present case, it's clearly a misuse; it's a lobby organization with a lot of money that pro forma puts forward an association of old women so that with this sleight of hand the complaint is accepted by the court at all on a subject where the court has no jurisdiction at all. The aim is to undermine a democratically made decision against the will of the people, i.e. exactly the opposite of a democratic process.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#73
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post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone was like Switzerland the CO2 (equiv.) emissions would go significantly down. Their electricity grid is made of hydro and nuclear, and fossil fuels in the energy grid are the single highest source of emissions by a factor of 2. Consumption-based emissions would also go down since since energy use is a large aspect in production of products. Transportation would likely rise given how much mountains there ar…

As per the source given by GP (bschne). I bet the number you are seeing when you say "emissions would go significantly down" is excluding emissions produced externally because you would be correct if only domestically produced emissions were counted. Domestic _energy_ production is just a fraction of the emissions footprint: Switzerland _literally_ has a 236% per capita CO2 equivalent consumption-based emissions when…

The overall emissions in the world would distinctly go down if all countries in the world stopped burning fossil fuels. Energy, heat and transportation are the main sources of fossil fuel consumption, and energy and heat is almost exclusively fossil free in Switzerland.

Since you brought up examples like Namibia, what would happen to emissions if Switzerland invaded Namibia and took over that country? Switzerland per capital emissions would drastically go down, but global emissions would obvious be unchanged.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#74
post #64
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Switzerland isn't some rogue state, the population has legal means to force the government to do essentially whatever they want. So the human rights violation is essentially being committed by the population themselves. Well, no. Switzerland is not an anarchic commune, it's a representational democracy, just one that makes heavy use of referendums. But just like elections, referendums don't establish consent, they…

> it's a representational democracy Switzerland is a direct democracy, not just a representative (i.e. indirect) democracy. In the present case the ECHR is obviously misused with very dubious arguments. The fact that the ECHR does not put a stop to such abuse will not exactly improve its acceptance among the Swiss voters.

No, Switzerland is at most a semi-direct democracy. We don't vote on every last decision the government takes, after all - we have a bicameral parliament and an executive branch for those!

We just also have votations on a lot of things.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#75
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this would be a worthwhile case if a youthful physicist was bringing the complaint? As per the article, they are arguing that seniors are particularly affected by climate change due to heat waves, and these are causing deaths. The 2022 heatwaves had hundreds of deaths attributed to climate change in Switzerland: https://lenews.ch/2023/07/08/climate-change-behind-60-percen...

The issue with people dying from heat waves has nothing to do with climate change. The issue is that Switzerland outlawed air conditioning for private homes (still allowed in shopping centres though!)

Show me that law, because as far as I can tell, that's complete nonsense.

I know of a bunch of people who legally purchased and installed aircon in their homes.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#76
post #75
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with people dying from heat waves has nothing to do with climate change. The issue is that Switzerland outlawed air conditioning for private homes (still allowed in shopping centres though!)

Show me that law, because as far as I can tell, that's complete nonsense. I know of a bunch of people who legally purchased and installed aircon in their homes.

It might vary by canton, I’m in Zürich.

https://archive.is/7g3A9

Yeah you can buy the mobile AC unit, but none of the new-builds in the past 10+ years come with a built-in (fixed) unit.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#77
post #74
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's a representational democracy Switzerland is a direct democracy, not just a representative (i.e. indirect) democracy. In the present case the ECHR is obviously misused with very dubious arguments. The fact that the ECHR does not put a stop to such abuse will not exactly improve its acceptance among the Swiss voters.

No, Switzerland is at most a semi-direct democracy. We don't vote on every last decision the government takes, after all - we have a bicameral parliament and an executive branch for those! We just also have votations on a lot of things.

> No, Switzerland is at most a semi-direct democracy. .. We don't vote on every last decision the government takes

Trotzdem nennt man das "direkte Demokratie". Wir hatten noch so etwas wie "Staatskunde" in der Schule. Die Jungen haben das heute anscheinend nicht mehr. Der Punkt ist, dass das Volk per Initiative etc. bei Bedarf eingreifen kann, also nicht nur dem Parlament aus der Ferne zusehen darf. Siehe auch https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/de/home/politik-ge....

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#78
post #77
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Switzerland is at most a semi-direct democracy. We don't vote on every last decision the government takes, after all - we have a bicameral parliament and an executive branch for those! We just also have votations on a lot of things.

> No, Switzerland is at most a semi-direct democracy. .. We don't vote on every last decision the government takes Trotzdem nennt man das "direkte Demokratie". Wir hatten noch so etwas wie "Staatskunde" in der Schule. Die Jungen haben das heute anscheinend nicht mehr. Der Punkt ist, dass das Volk per Initiative etc. bei Bedarf eingreifen kann, also nicht nur dem Parlament aus der Ferne zusehen darf. Siehe auch https:…

You can call it what you want but even Wikipedia makes a clear distinction between a "direct democracy" without representatives and "instruments for direct democracy in an other representative system": https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direkte_Demokratie

Of course your "Staatskunde" lesson in school may have handwaved that distinction because the former by definition is stateless and the purpose is to distinguish between the Swiss governance model and other representative democracies, not doing a deep dive on all forms of governance.

We had "political science" lessons in school and they were largely about the structure of our own system (e.g. one exam literally involved adjusting the federal budget), maybe with some excursions to contrast it with e.g. the US but I don't think we ever learned about delegative democracy, let alone anarchist, minarchist or Marxist theories. Because it was a public school in Germany, the German model of the "social market economy" was never challenged and implied to be the best possible system because it is written into our constitution.

Saying a representative democracy that makes use of instruments for direct democracy is direct democracy is a bit like saying a social market economy (i.e. a market economy with a state-provided, limited, tax-funded social welfare system) is socialism. One may have political motivations to label it as such (either to make it more or less appealing) but it muddies definitions by conflating "pars pro toto", i.e. a part and the whole.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#79
post #64
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Switzerland isn't some rogue state, the population has legal means to force the government to do essentially whatever they want. So the human rights violation is essentially being committed by the population themselves. Well, no. Switzerland is not an anarchic commune, it's a representational democracy, just one that makes heavy use of referendums. But just like elections, referendums don't establish consent, they…

> it's a representational democracy Switzerland is a direct democracy, not just a representative (i.e. indirect) democracy. In the present case the ECHR is obviously misused with very dubious arguments. The fact that the ECHR does not put a stop to such abuse will not exactly improve its acceptance among the Swiss voters.

Semantics aside, this is a red herring. Whether you call it a "direct" democracy or a "representative" democracy, it's a governance system based on majority votes, not consent. Going through the courts is the correct approach in this case if they believed there was a criminal injustice that could not be remedied through electoral means. As the legal basis in this case is the ECHR, not Swiss law, taking this to the ECHR court is the logical conclusion.

You can disagree with the ECHR. Not every country is a signatory of the ECHR. Not every country is a signatory of the equivalent UN convention either - notably the US is also not a signatory to the UN convention on the rights of children and there are many people in signatory countries who don't seem to agree with it either. But as long as the Swiss government does not remove itself from the ECHR, it is subject to it. You can't have it both ways - or rather, you can and Switzerland does as it hasn't signed protocols 4 and 12 (pertaining free movement and discrimination respectively) and has only signed but not ratified protocol 1.

Re: Switzerland faces landmark climate-human rights ruling

#80
post #78
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, Switzerland is at most a semi-direct democracy. .. We don't vote on every last decision the government takes Trotzdem nennt man das "direkte Demokratie". Wir hatten noch so etwas wie "Staatskunde" in der Schule. Die Jungen haben das heute anscheinend nicht mehr. Der Punkt ist, dass das Volk per Initiative etc. bei Bedarf eingreifen kann, also nicht nur dem Parlament aus der Ferne zusehen darf. Siehe auch https:…

You can call it what you want but even Wikipedia makes a clear distinction between a "direct democracy" without representatives and "instruments for direct democracy in an other representative system": https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direkte_Demokratie Of course your "Staatskunde" lesson in school may have handwaved that distinction because the former by definition is stateless and the purpose is to distinguish between…

It's a well defined and established terminology, regardless of opinions.
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