By Ruth Santiago and Michael B. Gerrard* This opinion piece was first published in The Hill. It is available here. The Biden administration faces a choice that could advance two of its core objectives — fostering environmental justice and fighting climate change. Puerto Rico’s already troubled energy system was devastated by Hurricane […]
International
266 posts
By Margaret Barry and Korey Silverman-Roati Each month, Arnold & Porter and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law collect and summarize developments in climate-related litigation, which we also add to our U.S. and non-U.S. climate litigation charts. If you know of any cases we have missed, please email us at columbiaclimate@gmail.com. HERE ARE […]
By Maria Antonia Tigre* Over the last year Brazil has seen numerous innovative climate litigation claims filed that have questioned the country’s climate policies and general effects of activities on climate change. (I wrote about some of those here and here.) The Amazon rainforest, the country’s not-so-secret weapon to mitigate […]
by Matteo Fermeglia, Catherine Higham, Korey Silverman-Roati and Joana Setzer* Climate litigation is now established as a critical part of domestic climate governance regimes. While domestic climate litigation is still the most notorious form of climate-related dispute resolution, arbitration and mediation are becoming important means of resolving climate-related disputes. However, the […]
by Iva Lea Aurer* The historic judgment rendered by the District Court of the Hague on May 26, 2021 represents a new understanding of corporate liability in regards to the risk of harm caused by their contribution to climate change. The court ordered Royal Dutch Shell (“RDS”) to reduce its […]
By Christoph Schwarte* In 1978, during a phase of the Cold War when relationships between East and West began to relax, the United States and 4 other nuclear powers (China, France, the Soviet Union and the UK) made unilateral declarations granting security assurances to non-nuclear- weapon states. Speaking on behalf […]
By Jaap Spier[1] On April 29, 2021 the German Constitutional Court (the Bundesverfassungsgericht, or GCC) rendered a ground-breaking judgment, requiring the German government to establish specific plans to achieve its mid-century greenhouse gas emissions goal. (An English press release is available here. The judgment, in German, and an unofficial English […]
On Earth Day, citizens all around the world make a concerted effort to reflect upon their relationship with nature, and collectively share what specific actions we can take to protect our planet against threats such as air and water pollution, deforestation, species decline, extreme weather events, and more — all of which are exacerbated by climate change.
The “Rights of Nature” movement is fundamentally rethinking humanity’s relationship with nature, and it is gaining momentum. It is led by activists advocating for ecosystems such as rivers, lakes, and mountains to bear legal rights in the same, or at least a similar, manner as human beings. This movement is striving for a paradigm shift in which nature is placed at the center and humans are connected to it in an interdependent way, rather than a dominant one. How would such a legal system work, and could giving rights to nature help in the legal battle against climate change? A few case studies offer some insight.