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<p>This article presents a qualitative single-case study examining the role of metaphors in framing legal reasoning in the European Court of Human Rights judgment in <i>Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland</i> (2024). Drawing on Conceptual Metaphor Theory, legal semiotics and discourse analysis, the study shows how spatial, embodied and temporal metaphors frame key concepts in climate-related human rights adjudication, including state responsibility, urgency, vulnerability and access to justice. A purposive, MIPVU-coded dataset of 65 metaphorically used lexical units from the majority judgment and Judge Eicke’s separate opinion was mapped onto conceptual metaphors and six thematic domains using ATLAS.ti software. The findings indicate that metaphors function as cognitive and argumentative devices that articulate the scope and immediacy of states’ positive obligations under Articles 2 and 8 of the Convention. The study concludes that metaphor, far from being decorative, is functionally constitutive of the Court’s reasoning, making complex environmental harms judicially intelligible and normatively actionable.</p>

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Framing Rights, Weighing Duties: Metaphor and Human Rights in the ECtHR’s Landmark Climate Judgment

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月28日

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  • Magdalena Perdek

摘要

This article presents a qualitative single-case study examining the role of metaphors in framing legal reasoning in the European Court of Human Rights judgment in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland (2024). Drawing on Conceptual Metaphor Theory, legal semiotics and discourse analysis, the study shows how spatial, embodied and temporal metaphors frame key concepts in climate-related human rights adjudication, including state responsibility, urgency, vulnerability and access to justice. A purposive, MIPVU-coded dataset of 65 metaphorically used lexical units from the majority judgment and Judge Eicke’s separate opinion was mapped onto conceptual metaphors and six thematic domains using ATLAS.ti software. The findings indicate that metaphors function as cognitive and argumentative devices that articulate the scope and immediacy of states’ positive obligations under Articles 2 and 8 of the Convention. The study concludes that metaphor, far from being decorative, is functionally constitutive of the Court’s reasoning, making complex environmental harms judicially intelligible and normatively actionable.