No abstract

In 2015, a Pakistani court in the case ofLeghariv.Federation of Pakistanmade history by accepting arguments that governmental failures to address climate change adequately violated petitioners’ rights. This case forms part of an emerging body of pending or decided climate change-related lawsuits that incorporate rights-based arguments in several countries, including the Netherlands, the Philippines, Austria, South Africa, and the United States (US). These decisions align with efforts to recognize the human rights dimensions of climate change, which received important endorsement in the Paris Agreement. The decisions also represent a significant milestone in climate change litigation. Although there have been hundreds of climate-based cases around the world over the past two decades – especially in the US – past and much of the ongoing litigation focuses primarily on statutory interpretation avenues. Previous efforts to bring human rights cases have also failed to achieve formal success. The new cases demonstrate an increasing trend for petitioners to employ rights claims in climate change lawsuits, as well as a growing receptivity of courts to this framing. This ‘rights turn’ could serve as a model or inspiration for rights-based litigation in other jurisdictions, especially those with similarly structured law and court access.

Since the conclusion of the Paris Agreement, climate litigation has become a global phenomenon, casting courts as important players in multilevel climate governance. However, most climate litigation scholarship focuses on court actions in the Global North. This Article is the first to shine a light on the Global South's contribution to transnational climate litigation. Analysis of this experience is essential if transnational climate jurisprudence is to contribute meaningfully to global climate governance, and to ensuring just outcomes for the most climate-vulnerable.

The principal global databases tracking climate change litigation are the climate change litigation case charts (US and non-US litigation) maintained by the Sabin Center on Climate Change Law at Columbia University Law School and the Climate Change Laws of the World database maintained by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.