CRC/C/88/D/104/2019 of complex environmental cases is often delayed in the State party, and that resolving the issue of their standing alone would take years of litigation. Adjudicating the merits is no different. For example, the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the merits in the case of Fundación Ciudadanos Independientes c. San Juan, Provincia de, Estado Nacional y otros, an environmental remediation lawsuit about a 1 million litre toxic spill more than eight years after the complaint was filed. In the Papel Prensa S.A. c. Estado Nacional case, the Supreme Court took eight years to issue a decision, only to set aside the precautionary principle of the General Environment Act. Even when a case results in a judgment favourable to environmental plaintiffs, proper execution of the judgment is not guaranteed. More than 12 years after judgment in the Mendoza-Riachuelo case to which the State party refers in its observations, there is still no significant progress in clean-up of the Matanza-Riachuelo river or improvement in the nearby inhabitants’ quality of life. Third-party intervention 6. On 1 May 2020, a third-party intervention was submitted before the Committee by David R. Boyd and John H. Knox, the current and former holders of the mandate of Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.6 State party’s observations on the third-party intervention 7. On 30 July 2020, the State party submitted its observations on the intervention. It notes that it shares the concern of the interveners regarding the phenomenon of climate change, and that it positively values it as a legitimate wake-up call for the international community to carry out concrete and effective actions against global warming. Nevertheless, the State party reiterates its arguments that the communication does not meet the admissibility criteria under the individual communications procedure, nor does it present convincing arguments on the merits of the communication. Oral hearing 8.1 Following an invitation by the Committee and pursuant to rule 19 of its rules of procedure under the Optional Protocol, legal representatives of both parties appeared before the Committee on 3 June 2021 by way of videoconference, answered questions from Committee members on their submission and provided further clarifications. Authors’ oral comments 8.2 The authors reiterate their claim that the State party has failed to take all necessary and appropriate measures to keep global temperatures from warming by 1.5°C above the preindustrial era, thereby contributing to climate change, in violation of their rights. They argue that if the Convention is to protect children from the climate emergency, then the concepts of harm, jurisdiction, causation and exhaustion must be adapted to a new reality. They reiterate their arguments that the harms the authors have experienced, and will continue to experience, were foreseeable in 1990, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that global warming of just 1°C could cause the water shortages, vector-borne diseases and sea level rise the authors now face. They argue that if the respondent States parties do not take immediate action to vastly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, the authors will continue to suffer greatly in their lifetime. They insist that there is a direct and foreseeable causal link between the harm to which they have been exposed and the respondent States parties’ emissions, arguing that there is no dispute that the harm they are suffering is attributable to climate change and that the respondent States parties’ ongoing emissions contribute to worsening climate change. 8.3 Regarding the issue of exhaustion of domestic remedies, the authors reiterate their argument that the remedies indicated by the State party would not provide them with effective relief. They argue that the constitutional amparo remedy is ill-suited to complex cases like theirs. According to article 2 of the National Amparo Act, the remedy of amparo is not 6 For additional information, see Sacchi et al. v. Germany (CRC/C/88/D/107/2019), paras. 6.1–6.5. 7