Bonaire Climate Case Judgment Issued on 28 January 2026: Dutch Court Finds Human Rights Violations in Climate Adaptation and Mitigation

How the District Court of The Hague Applied Human Rights and International Climate Law in Stichting Greenpeace Nederland v. The State of the Netherlands

Bonaire Climate Case Judgment (28 January 2026)

On 28 January 2026, the District Court of The Hague issued its long-awaited judgment in Stichting Greenpeace Nederland et al. v. The State of the Netherlands, commonly referred to as the Bonaire Climate Case or Klimaatzaak Bonaire. A full case entry, including a detailed legal analysis, impact and context assessment, and a complete procedural record, is available in the Climate Court Climate Litigation Database. This post highlights the key findings of the judgment and explains why it matters for climate litigation, human rights law, and climate governance in overseas territories.

The case was filed on 11 January 2024 by eight residents of Bonaire together with Stichting Greenpeace Nederland. The plaintiffs argued that the Dutch State failed to adequately protect Bonaire, a Caribbean public body of the Netherlands, from the effects of climate change and treated its inhabitants unequally compared to those in the European Netherlands. According to the plaintiffs, these failures amounted to violations of the European Convention on Human Rights, including Articles 8 and 14 ECHR and Article 1 of Protocol No. 12. Following written proceedings and an admissibility decision in September 2024, the court held oral hearings on 7 and 8 October 2025 before delivering its final judgment on the merits.

In its assessment of the facts, the court placed significant weight on the present and future climate risks facing Bonaire. It held that “the inhabitants of Bonaire have been experiencing the negative effects of climate change for many years and to an increasing degree” and that it was “not disputed that by 2050, a significant part of the low-lying areas of Bonaire will most likely be inundated” (District Court of The Hague, 28 January 2026, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2026:1347, paras. 4.14–4.31 and 11.24.5). The court further noted that a substantial share of Bonaire’s buildings and cultural heritage are located precisely in those low-lying areas (ibid., para. 11.24.5).

Climate adaptation, mitigation, and human rights

Turning to the State’s response, the court undertook an extensive review of both adaptation and mitigation measures. On adaptation, it concluded that “the State’s climate policy in the area of adaptation with regard to Bonaire had significant shortcomings in the past” (ibid., para. 11.22). A recurring concern was the absence of a coherent planning framework. The court considered it “a negative factor that there is still no climate adaptation plan or integrated climate adaptation policy for Bonaire, even though it has been known for three decades that the island is particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change” (ibid., para. 11.24.1). Although recent steps were acknowledged, the court emphasised that uncertainty as to when a concrete plan would be in place was difficult to reconcile with the urgency of the risks (ibid., paras. 11.24.6–11.24.7).

Crucially, the court rejected a siloed approach to climate governance. It held that “the mitigation and adaptation measures cannot be assessed separately from each other”, explaining that the applicable framework requires an overall assessment of all climate measures taken within a state (ibid., para. 11.29). On that basis, the court concluded that “the mitigation and adaptation measures as a whole taken by the competent authorities in relation to the inhabitants of Bonaire do not meet the obligations that the State has assumed in a UN context”, amounting to a breach of the State’s positive obligations under Article 8 ECHR (ibid., para. 11.29).

Equality and non-discrimination formed another core pillar of the judgment. The court found that mitigation and adaptation measures for Bonaire were taken “much later and less systematically than for the inhabitants of the European Netherlands”, despite long-standing knowledge of Bonaire’s heightened vulnerability (ibid., paras. 1.6–1.8). It held that the State failed to provide sufficient justification for this disparity and that the particular circumstances of Bonaire in fact pointed to the need for earlier and stronger measures (ibid., para. 1.8). The court therefore ruled that the State had acted, and continued to act, in violation of Article 14 ECHR in conjunction with Article 8 ECHR and Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 (ibid., operative part; paras. 12.6–12.7).

Role of International Climate Law

The judgment also reflects the growing influence of international climate law and the increasing relevance of advisory opinions in domestic climate litigation. In summarising Greenpeace’s submissions, the court expressly noted reliance on the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change as part of an emerging international consensus on state duties in the climate context (ibid., para. 11.18.5). According to the court’s account of those submissions, the ICJ Advisory Opinion supports the proposition that states are required to take timely, concrete, and effective climate action, including through adequate climate risk research, the development of national adaptation plans, effective implementation with sufficient resources, and continuous monitoring and evaluation.

Importantly, the court linked these international standards to the protection of vulnerable people, places, and ecosystems, explicitly situating Bonaire within that category. The reference to the ICJ Advisory Opinion reinforces the idea that climate obligations under international law are not abstract or aspirational, but must be operationalised at the domestic level, particularly where territories face disproportionate climate risks and contribute minimally to global greenhouse gas emissions. By engaging with the ICJ Advisory Opinion in this way, the court placed the Bonaire Climate Case within a broader trend of human rights–based climate litigation, in which international legal principles are increasingly used to inform the scope and content of states’ positive obligations under instruments such as the European Convention on Human Rights.

Remedies

In terms of remedies, the court opted for forward-looking orders framed as objectives rather than detailed legislative prescriptions. It ordered the State to ensure that adaptation targets under the United Arab Emirates Framework for Global Climate Resilience, including the drafting and implementation of a national adaptation plan covering Bonaire, are achieved on time, in any event by 2030 (ibid., para. 12.4). It also ordered the State, within eighteen months, to incorporate absolute economy-wide emission reduction targets, including intermediate targets and pathways consistent with Article 4(1) of the Paris Agreement, into national legislation (ibid., para. 12.3). At the same time, the court emphasised that it could not order legislation with a “specific, concretely defined content”, underlining the limits of judicial intervention in the legislative domain (ibid., paras. 11.53–11.54).