When lawsuits first began to raise climate change issues in the late 1980s, the cases were rare and experimental, with litigants testing out ways to draw on the growing body of climate science to argue for legal obligations to address “the serious and imminent threat to our environment posed by […]
Global Climate Litigation
64 posts
A Historic Advisory Opinion On July 3, 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) issued Advisory Opinion No. 32—the most important and progressive document yet released by an international court on the climate crisis. In this landmark ruling (still only available in Spanish, with official English and Portuguese translations […]
As the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) prepares to release its advisory opinion on climate change on July 3, 2025—joining earlier decisions from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Seas (ITLOS) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and in anticipation of the International Court of […]
A plaintiff from the Global South. A carbon giant from the Global North. And a courtroom in a mid-sized German city. On May 28, 2025, the Higher Regional Court of Hamm issued its ruling in what has become Germany’s most high-profile climate lawsuit — Lliuya v. RWE. While the court […]
In a powerful and precedent-setting advisory opinion, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Court has declared that European Union law—applicable pursuant to the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement—prohibits the approval of fossil fuel projects without first assessing the global climate impacts of their emissions, including those generated when oil and […]
Maria Antonia Tigre and Susan Ann Samuel On May 2, 2025, a coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), headed by the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU), and in collaboration with the African Climate Platform, Resilient40, Natural Justice, and Environmental Lawyer Collective for Africa, submitted a petition to the African Court on […]
Lithium has become a cornerstone of the global energy transition, powering technologies central to decarbonization efforts, such as electric vehicle batteries and large-scale renewable energy storage. As demand for this critical mineral accelerates, mining activity has intensified across the so-called “lithium triangle” – Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile – a region […]
On February 19, 2025, the Swedish Supreme Court dismissed the Aurora case (Anton Foley and others v Sweden), the first systemic climate change case brought in Sweden. The case is among the first in which a national apex court has applied the principles developed by the European Court of Human […]