Summary
In Switzerland, a minor child – 11 years old – argued that minor children are entitled to vote in environmental matters to defend their lives, and claimed voting rights in environmental matters for herself and wild bees to stop the destruction of nature. In Switzerland nearly half of the wild bee population is endangered. The case considered whether or not wild bees and minor children should be given the political right to vote in the proposed biodiversity initiative. The voting was part of a federal popular initiative, which allows citizens to propose changes to the Swiss Federal Constitution, once 100’000 valid signatures have been collected in 18 months.
She based her claim on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially Comment No. 26 from 2023 in which the Committee on the Rights of the Child confirmed that children have a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The girl argued that the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as it is safeguarded in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child includes the rights of nature, and therefore, also voting rights for the endangered Swiss wild bee population.
On October 2, 2024 the Government Council of the Canton of Zurich rejected the plea. The Government Council argued that wild bees are not holders of basic rights and can therefore not claim political rights. There is no reference to a legal norm on which this assumption is based. However, they made a reference to the article from Prof. Kunz, page 999, section 2 (Animals as holders of basic rights?).
The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland will now need to decide whether or not wild bees and minor children should be given the political right to vote in the biodiversity initiative. Swiss voters had already rejected the biodiversity initiative on September 22, 2024 with 63% of voters against it. The biodiversity initiative aimed to boost public funding to encourage farmers and others to set aside lands and waterways to let the wild develop more, and increase the total area allocated for green spaces that must remain untouched by human development. Proponents of the biodiversity initiative point to the threats to bees, frogs, birds, mosses and other wildlife.