Mattering in the Anthropocene: the ECtHR’s domesticating framing of climate change

Climate change is subject to a wide range of legal ‘framings’, or emphases of what is considered legally important and relevant. This includes the decision to frame it as a human rights issue at all. In 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) adopted such a framing, recognising that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) places States under regulatory and procedural obligations concerning climate change. However, closer inspection shows that this rights framing is a narrow one, entailing a restrictive understanding of who and what matters to human rights law. The present article terms this ‘domestication’, or the application of a frame-within-a-frame that allowed the Court to issue guidance characterised by a high level of abstraction and deference. This approach prioritises homogenised domestic rights-holders and domestic decision-makers while avoiding equity concerns and leaving many victims outside the frame of ECHR protection. Setting out the problems of domestication, the present article contemplates concepts of success in climate cases and argues for a more granular, critical engagement that takes material vulnerabilities seriously.