A Clear Thinker with Sharp Wits

When Cordelia Bähr was a child, her primary school teacher wrote in her friendship book: “Has a strong will to succeed” – an assessment that still holds true today. Now a successful climate lawyer known for her tenacity, Bähr recently had another opportunity to prove the strength of her will: as the legal architect behind the KlimaSeniorinnen organization’s filing to the European Court of Human Rights that accused Switzerland of doing too little to combat climate change. The ECHR ruled in the seniors’ favor, issuing a groundbreaking verdict that sent shockwaves around the world.

At 44, Bähr remains composed. She’s not an extrovert, she says, and the public attention following the ECHR decision almost became too much for her. However, she accepted it as part of the job. Given the choice, she much prefers working quietly behind the scenes, poring over every little paragraph until she’s found a solution. Calm and diligent, she’s well organized and drafts her legal texts with accuracy and precision. “Maybe I got that from my grandmother,” she says with a smile. “She was a mathematician.”

Sitting in a quiet corner of a café, Bähr sips a cappuccino, her hair pinned up, her gaze alert. Why law? “As a child, I once said I wanted to be a corporate executive,” she recalls. But after earning her Matura school-leaving certificate and attending an interview for a bank internship, she quickly changed her mind. It was clear that the world of business was nothing for her. “The atmosphere was ice-cold,” she says. When later working at a corporate law firm, she realized that cases revolving solely around money didn’t satisfy her interest either.

But she’d always enjoyed a good argument. “I learnt the art of debating from my mother,” she adds with a grin. Bähr grew up in St. Gallen – her father working in education, her mother a hairdresser – but when she was seven, her parents divorced. As coincidence had it, both her parents’ new partners were lawyers. Even then, law was already in the air.

The café gradually fills up. Many of the visitors could be law students cramming for their next exam, given the proximity of UZH’s Institute of Law. This was the law school that Bähr herself attended, and where she earned her degree in 2006. When it came to studying for her Master of Laws L.L.M – having gained professional experience at the Youth Prosecution Office in Wil, Zurich’s District Court and a corporate law firm in Zurich – she managed to get into the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE). “That was a formative time,” she says excitedly. Enthralled by the stimulating inputs and discussions, it was then that she knew she was hooked – and that her heart lay in climate law.

In fact, the penny had dropped earlier. “It was in 2006 when former US Vice President Al Gore’s documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, came out,” Bähr recalls. The film opened her eyes. It was clear that the world was about to face huge challenges, but what could she do about it? She could have become a climate activist – but she chose to become a lawyer. “Climate action isn’t a question of idealism,” she says. “Given the scientific data, it’s a necessity.” And, with her legal training, she had the tools to act.

For years, climate law experts had been looking for legal ways of holding governments accountable for inadequate climate policies. With the KlimaSeniorinnen’s win at the European Court of Human Rights, Bähr had achieved what many had never thought possible. The success earned her a place on scientific journal Nature’s list of 10 people who shaped science in 2024, with the title: “the climate-crusading lawyer who sued Switzerland over global warming – and won.” In April 2025, Time magazine followed suit, naming Bähr one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Helen Keller, a professor of international law at the University of Zurich and a former ECHR judge, told Nature that Bähr’s case was so perfectly prepared, it would have been difficult for the court to rule against the plaintiffs. Bähr nods – yes, she’d drafted this case with meticulous care, too, having been inspired by a similar case in the Netherlands. There, the environmental group Urgenda had been successful in their charges against the government by arguing that its misguided climate policy had resulted in failure to fulfill its legal duty to protect its population.

Taking another sip of her cappuccino, Bähr explains how the climate seniors’ lawsuit came about. Greenpeace had approached her former boss, asking whether there were legal means of inducing Switzerland to enforce more responsible climate policies. Bähr was on the case immediately. During her research, she came across a study on the 2003 heatwave in Europe that caused 70,000 deaths, and discovered that elderly women had been disproportionately affected. “That’s when I realized that older women could be the ones to meet the strict requirements for taking such legal action in Switzerland,” Bähr says. “They’re particularly vulnerable to climate change and could reference Switzerland’s state obligation to protect its citizens. After all, it’s the state’s duty to protect its population from death and illness. They could assert that Switzerland had failed to update its legislation to prevent the health risks of climate change and thereby violated its obligation.” Such was the reasoning behind Bähr’s legal challenge.

But the biggest legal challenge lay elsewhere: the lack of constitutional jurisdiction. “There’s no judicial body in Switzerland that checks whether federal laws are constitutional,” the lawyer explains. In the end, the climate seniors were forced to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights – where they were proven right. Switzerland was reprimanded for failing to take sufficient action against climate change and for breaching the Paris Agreement it had ratified.

The ruling made headlines worldwide. Switzerland, often seen as a model student, had been given a ticking-off. But the decision has ramifications far beyond the uproar it caused in Switzerland – it set a legal precedent. “The European Court has affirmed that climate action is a human right,” Bähr points out. “Now, this ruling can be legally enforced in all 46 member states of the Council of Europe.”

At her Zurich law firm, where Bähr is a partner, she also takes on smaller mandates – such as disputes over water protection and other environmental cases – or drafts legal texts for public initiatives and expert opinions. But a larger case she’s currently working on is a civil lawsuit against Holcim, where she represents residents of the Indonesian island of Pari who are suing the cement company for climate-related damages to their habitat and demanding compensation.

Bähr is in high demand as a climate lawyer. And she has plenty to do. The KlimaSeniorinnen case isn’t over yet, either. Switzerland has asked the European Human Rights Commission to close the case, arguing that the ruling is unjustified and already implemented. The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers will convene soon to oversee compliance and Bähr has already submitted the climate seniors’ response.

Besides her work as a climate lawyer, she leads a normal family life with her husband and child. “That means dinner together with my seven-year-old son or a weekend outing to clear my mind,” she says. But come Monday morning, she’s back at her desk, drafting her next legal paper with her famous sharp wits and customary precision.