Climate Change Litigation – A Promising Perspective?

Abstract

Like climate change, climate lawsuits are a global phenomenon. Under the guise of “strategic litigation”, individuals and groups try to advance sufficient efforts to mitigate climate change by states and companies, citing constitutional fundamental and human rights. The majority of the litigation has so far been unsuccessful. With the Dutch judgments in the Urgenda and Shell cases and the decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court of March 2021, case-law precedent for concrete measures has recently become available. The article sheds light on the discussion on climate lawsuits, lets critics have their say and concludes with an outlook on the effects of these proceedings on liberal parliamentary democracies and the emergence of global ecological human rights and possibly even of nature’s rights for its own sake.