Climate Change Disputes in the Czech Republic

This chapter is aimed at describing the relationship between individual rights and climate change agenda in the Czech Republic. Firstly, the authors provide a brief description of the Czech framework policy for climate change adaptation and specific acts dealing with the climate change. After that, the means of judicial protection in climate change disputes are analysed, with a particular emphasis on the role of administrative courts. For better understanding, the authors present the most significant decisions of the Czech courts. They conclude that the courts may provide relatively effective protection against both public and private actors. However, climate change is still a new topic with which the applicants have not yet learned to work. In some cases, which are primarily concerned with other issues such as air pollution, climate change serves more as a supporting than a stand-alone argument. This is not likely to change any time soon, because the country is not affected by climate change to the degree it would be forced to act and immediate action would be deemed necessary. Moreover, the judicial review of the state policies is not allowed, even though at the governmental level, short-term economic goals are clearly preferred to the environmental agenda.This chapter is aimed at describing the relationship between individual rights and climate change agenda in the Czech Republic. Firstly, the authors provide a brief description of the Czech framework policy for climate change adaptation and specific acts dealing with the climate change. After that, the means of judicial protection in climate change disputes are analysed, with a particular emphasis on the role of administrative courts. For better understanding, the authors present the most significant decisions of the Czech courts. They conclude that the courts may provide relatively effective protection against both public and private actors. However, climate change is still a new topic with which the applicants have not yet learned to work. In some cases, which are primarily concerned with other issues such as air pollution, climate change serves more as a supporting than a stand-alone argument. This is not likely to change any time soon, because the country is not affected by climate change to the degree it would be forced to act and immediate action would be deemed necessary. Moreover, the judicial review of the state policies is not allowed, even though at the governmental level, short-term economic goals are clearly preferred to the environmental agenda