Bringing Formal Organizations Back in: How an NGO Challenges a State in the Polycrisis Era

In times of multiple crises, such as climate change, formal organizations are becoming increasingly important. The “KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz” case shows how a non-governmental organization (NGO) sued the Swiss government at the European Court of Human Rights (EMGR) for its inadequate climate protection measures. With the EMGR's ruling, the NGO “KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz” challenged the Swiss state by claiming responsibility for the protection of vulnerable population groups (senior citizens). This precedent illustrates how formal organizations can use transnational legal pathways to change national policies in dealing with global crises. As counter-examples, we see social movements such as “Fridays for Future” and “Last Generation”, which have also challenged governmental climate protection policy, but have dispensed with single formal organizational elements. Our thesis is that foregoing formal organizational structures weakens the ability of collective entities to effectively address complex challenges such as the climate crisis, as there is a lack of clear accountability and coordinated processes that are necessary to sustainably tackle such issues. We thus question the traditional notion that states alone are responsible for tackling multiple challenges and why we need to bring formal organizations back into the discussion.