The Implications of Climate Change Litigation for International Environmental Law-Making

This chapter discusses the awareness-building impacts of climate litigation as well as related impacts such as strategies may have on the development of climate law and policy. Climate advocates are necessarily pushing the development of the law in new directions, as the entire world is at once simultaneously both a potential plaintiff and a defendant. Coupled with implications for mixed jurisdiction and the shaping of remedies are difficult temporal distances between the wrongs (emissions) and the injuries. Climate advocates have had to push for the progressive development of the law and related institutions, emphasizing not only the differences but the similarities of climate change with more familiar issues, such as common law nuisance. The author argues that the implications of climate litigation are far-reaching in part because the simple act of filing often draws media attention. Subsequent legal action focusing on victims and forcing defendants’ response to allegations has in and of itself advanced global awareness of climate change.https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_bk_contributions/1081/thumbnail.jp