LocationsDriving climate justice through legal channels
Nature goes to court
December 26, 2024
Judicial systems are becoming key players in climate action.
Nature is taking the stand as courtrooms worldwide become battlegrounds for Earth’s rights. The rise in climate litigation shows how the environment can take centre stage as a plaintiff, demanding justice and accountability, benefiting us all.
On 23 October 2024, India's Supreme Court declared a pollution-free environment a fundamental right, underscoring the government's duty to provide clean air and water. In April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against the Swiss State for inadequate climate action, affirming climate change as a human rights issue.
Since 2017, climate change court cases have surged, particularly in the US, but increasingly worldwide. Cases tripled from 884 in 2017 to 2,540 in 2023, with about 17 percent now occurring in developing countries, including small island developing states. The legal landscape is evolving, with significant rulings in Asia and the Pacific driving change. This is an area where UNDP is providing crucial support.
Early and groundbreaking work
For an example of climate justice pioneering, we can turn to 2010 to India’s National Green Tribunal and the Philippines’ Writ of Kalikasan (Kalikasan means Nature in Filipino language). This unique legal instrument – whose design was supported by UNDP - enables citizens to protect environmental rights by filing swift, accessible court petitions addressing ecological damages affecting multiple regions. It allows immediate judicial intervention to safeguard balanced and healthy ecosystems. For example, it has been used to close dumpsites and illegal landfills, prompt the rehabilitation of Manila Bay, and order the listing of non-environmentally friendly plastic products.
Similarly, courts in Pakistan have adopted a "climate justice" perspective, forming a climate change commission. A notable case involved seven-year-old Rabab Ali, who challenged plans to expand coal production in the Thar desert, focusing on intergenerational equity in climate actions. Pakistan was also one of the main proponents of the Loss and Damage concept, when it was first tabled.
What are the emerging trends in climate litigation we are seeing now?
Following the landmark Paris Agreement in 2015, activists and citizens worldwide are increasingly turning to courts for climate solutions, spurring innovative legal approaches and rethinking what climate justice means. Key trends include:
- Human rights-related to environmental assets and protections: Courts are recognizing the connection between climate change and human rights, boosting protections and accountability. Many courts now interpret constitutional rights to include environmental protections.
- Intergenerational equity: Cases by youth emphasize the unequal impact of climate change on future generations and how climate justice is one of the main advocacy issues for youth worldwide.
- Corporate accountability: Courts extending climate obligations to businesses.
- Innovative legal concepts: New principles like "water justice" and recognizing nature's legal rights are gaining traction, for example trees as living beings.
"Activists and citizens worldwide are increasingly turning to courts for climate solutions, spurring innovative legal approaches and rethinking what climate justice means."
Thanks to the leading role of the Pacific Island State of Vanuatu at the UN General Assembly, now the International Court of Justice is hearing a landmark case on climate justice – its largest case ever – to determine what countries and companies are obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions; and to determine the legal consequences for governments, where their acts or lack of action have significantly harmed the climate and environment. The court’s advisory opinion can be expected to influence climate-related legal action and policy for decades to come.
These legal advances compel the public and private sectors to consider and define more ambitious climate goals, offering citizens and activists new paths to enforce accountability.
What’s next for UNDP?
For UNDP, this is not only an area that requires urgent action but also a natural point of thematic convergence that brings together two of our areas of expertise: climate action and governance. UNDP is actively supporting courts in tackling these novel cases.
For example, our global strategy for environmental justice (2022) aims to increase accountability and protection of environmental rights for current and future generations, as well as promote environmental rule of law. The strategy is based on a three-pronged approach: establishing enabling legal frameworks: supporting people-centred, effective institutions; and increasing access to justice and legal empowerment. UNDP’s Nature Pledge has a key target of strengthening environmental justice frameworks in 50 countries.
This is yielding concrete results. For example, in Thailand, UNDP partnered with the Judicial Training Institute for Climate Justice training, equipping judges with climate impact insights. By supporting innovative legal concepts, we help justice actors advocate for new legal principles like "water justice," aiding courts in novel environmental cases. UNDP has also supported ASEAN countries with an Environmental Justice Needs Assessment.
Through its Justice Futures CoLab, UNDP advances the right to a healthy environment and addresses injustices, supporting courts in climate justice efforts.
Judicial systems are becoming key players in climate action, with the potential to address issues of climate migration, Indigenous rights, financing and extreme weather liabilities.
Climate justice will also be a critical factor under the proposed loss and damage mechanism, where UNDP, with national and international partners, supports countries with taxonomy, valuation of natural assets, damage assessments and strengthen the capacities of the courts to hear and manage these cases. Social awareness and citizens’ participation on issues of climate justice is another line of engagement.
As our climate and nature related “events” intensify, so will this trend towards seeking justice, legal and financial recourse. Ensure the systems and people involved are well prepared and discerning in this relatively new arena will serve everyone, including the environment as plaintiff in the midst of it all.
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