Gerd Winter was a Professor of Law at the University of Bremen from 1973-2008. He has founded and directed the Research Center for European Environmental Law (FEU) until 2016 and has served as consultant on administrative and environmental law development in transition countries. At the conference, his presentation focused on the EU People’s Climate Case, in which he has been directly involved as a leading counsel for the plaintiffs. After introducing the supranational nature of the EU legal order, he turned to the case, especially the plaintiffs’ right-based argument that the EU has a duty to adopt more stringent emissions reductions targets to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens and the challenge to get the case heard on those merits due to the very narrow concept of individual standing to sue adopted by the European Court of Justice. In the interview, he further elaborated on the internal diversity of legal systems and traditions in Europe, on the role played by human and procedural rights treaties in framing governments’ actions, and on the reasons that’d justify liberalizing standing for individuals to access EU courts when serious rights violations affect large numbers citizens.
Gerd Winter于1973-2008年担任不来梅大学的法学教授。在2016年之前，他创立并指导欧洲环境法研究中心（FEU），并担任转型期国家行政法和环境法发展的顾问。在会议上，他的发言主要围绕欧盟人民气候案展开，他作为原告的主要律师直接参与了该案。在介绍了欧盟法律秩序的超国家性质后，他重点介绍了该案中原告基于权利的论点，即欧盟有义务采取更严格的减排目标以保护其公民的基本权利，以及由于欧洲法院采用的个人起诉资格概念非常狭隘，使该案的审理面临挑战。在采访中，他进一步阐述了欧洲法律制度和传统的内部多样性，人权和程序性权利条约在制定政府行动方面所发挥的作用，以及当严重侵权行为影响到大量公民时，放宽个人向欧盟法院起诉的资格的理由。