An international court in France on Tuesday ruled Switzerland’s failure to adequately tackle the climate crisis was in violation of human rights, in a landmark climate judgment that could have a ripple effect across the globe.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France delivered its ruling in a case brought by more than 2,000 Swiss women, the majority of whom are in their 70s, against Switzerland’s government. They argued that climate change-fueled heat waves undermined their health and quality of life, and put them at risk of dying.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled on Tuesday in favour of a group of elderly Swiss women who had argued that their government's inadequate efforts to combat climate change put them at risk of dying during heatwaves.

The European court's decision on the case, brought by more than 2,000 women, could have a ripple effect across Europe and beyond, setting a precedent for how some courts deal with the rising tide of climate litigation argued on the basis of human rights infringements.

The European Court of Human Rights has made a landmark ruling that governments have a duty to protect people from climate change.

In a case brought by a group of elderly Swiss women, the Strasbourg judges ruled that Switzerland was not doing enough to tackle climate change.

The ruling is binding and can trickle down to influence the law in 46 countries in Europe including the UK. The court found that the Swiss state had violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the “right to respect for private and family life.”

An Iranian asylum seeker was shot dead by police in Switzerland after taking 15 people hostage on a train, authorities reported Friday.

Armed with an ax and knife, the man, 32, held the hostages on a train in the town of Essert-sous-Champvent in the Swiss canton of Vaud near the French border for almost four hours on Thursday night.

“The hostages were all released unharmed,” police in the Vaud canton said in a statement on Friday that only identified the man as an Iranian asylum seeker. “The hostage taker was fatally wounded during the intervention.”

Publicly, the global business leaders who gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, haven’t wanted to predict the winner of the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The closest they’ve come? Referring to it as a “geopolitical risk.”

But talk to executives privately, and they’re more explicit: They expect Donald Trump to win and while many are worried about that, they are also resigned to it.

The president of the Heritage Foundation confronted hosts at the World Economic Forum Thursday in Davos, Switzerland, challenging claims that the WEF is protecting democracy and calling so-called elites "part of the problem."

A ghost of elections past in the form of ex-president Donald Trump haunted the annual schmoozefest of the world's political and business elites in Davos.

While the American reality television star-turned-politician was on the other side of the Atlantic, the biggest names in business, finance and politics at the Swiss Alpine resort could not escape him after he stormed to victory on Monday in the Iowa caucuses.