15 child activists, including Greta Thunberg, accused Turkey, Argentina, France, Brazil and Germany for not taking adequate precautions against climate change in 2019, and filed a complaint on the grounds that they violated the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The case, which has been going on for almost 2 years, has come to a conclusion and the United Nations has stated that a total of 5 countries have really neglected the rules of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but that the activists should first apply to the courts in their own countries.
UN Committee justifies child activists
The countries complained of by the 15 activists are not China (27%), the USA (14.6%) or India (6.8%), which have the highest carbon footprints. The reason for this is that these countries have not signed the 2014 additional protocol to the UN convention. Among the complained countries are countries such as Turkey, which accepted its responsibilities on children’s rights and signed the agreement 30 years ago.
The United Nations Committee, made up of 18 independent human rights experts, reached its final conclusion on this complaint submitted in 2019. Stating that, as the activists said, there was “sufficient causal link” between the countries on the list violating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the committee decided that despite all this, the activists should first file a complaint with the courts in their countries.