The transnational movement of climate activists is resorting increasingly often to acts of civil disobedience. Upon being prosecuted for those acts, climate activists across various jurisdictions are starting to plead the general criminal law defence of necessity. The present article takes the cases in which that defence was pleaded before Swiss courts as a case study to analyse the legal questions raised by the ‘climate necessity defence’, conceptualised as an instance of climate litigation. The article hence situates the Swiss cases within a broader framework, trying to draw interpretive insights from international environmental law and climate science, as well as the transnational case‐law on the climate necessity defence. The article's overarching submission is that a broad interpretation of the defence, tending towards accepting its applicability, is more in line with the current legal thinking on environmental matters than a restrictive interpretation rejecting a priori climate necessity claims.

中文翻译：

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（瑞士）气候抗议案件中的必要性辩护：气候行动主义时代的民主争论

气候活动人士的跨国运动越来越频繁地诉诸公民不服从行为。在因这些行为被起诉后，各个司法管辖区的气候活动人士开始为一般刑法的必要性辩护。本文以在瑞士法院进行该抗辩的案例为案例研究，以气候诉讼为例来分析“气候必要性抗辩”所引发的法律问题。因此，本文将瑞士案例置于更广泛的框架内，试图从国际环境法和气候科学以及关于气候必要性抗辩的跨国判例法中汲取解释性见解。文章的首要观点是，对辩护的广义解释，倾向于接受其适用性，比拒绝接受其适用性的限制性解释更符合当前关于环境问题的法律思维。先验气候必要性主张。