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Irish Supreme Court quashes climate mitigation plan: environmental rights caught between redundancy and vagueness

Christopher Borucki, Pieter Gillaerts and Francoise Auvray - 21st September 2020

Climate Change| Environmental Rights

On 31 July 2020, the Irish Supreme Court annulled the government’s climate mitigation plan. A grand chamber of – exceptionally – seven judges ruled unanimously that the plan did not meet the legal requirements of the Irish climate legislation. Ireland is the second country after the Netherlands where the Supreme Court ruled on a climate […]

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Environmental protection of children’s right to life: ICCPR General Comment 36

Annabel Webb - 15th August 2020

Children's Rights| Climate Change| Environmental Rights

As the indivisibility of human rights and environmental protection solidifies as a norm of international human rights law, children are increasingly claiming their right to environmental protection under domestic constitutions and international human rights mechanisms. Children’s legal claims argue States’ obligations to protect them against the looming ecological catastrophe of climate change as a matter […]

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Ireland: Historic Victory for Environmental Campaigners

Jamie McLoughlin - 6th August 2020

Climate Change

In a landmark decision, the Irish Supreme Court has unanimously quashed what it termed the Irish Government’s ‘excessively vague’  plan to tackle climate change. The Court held that the plan fell ‘a long way short’ of the specificity required by the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. The case, brought by the environmental […]

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The Dilution of Environment Impact Assessment Norms in India

Prakul Khera - 29th July 2020

Climate Change| Environmental Rights

Environment Impact Assessment is a process used to identify the environmental, social and economic impacts of any project. It aims to predict environmental impact at an early stage in project planning, find means to reduce adverse impacts and present the predictions and options to decision-makers. This has been inculcated in the laws of major jurisdictions […]

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Climate Fund Case: Climate Litigation reaches the Brazilian Supreme Court

- 24th July 2020

Climate Change| Environmental Rights

Hailed as a milestone in Brazilian climate change litigation, a landmark decision by the Supreme Court has recently ordered public hearings in a lawsuit brought by four political parties on the underfunding of the National Climate Fund. The court recognised that the subject demands “interdisciplinary knowledge regarding scientific, socio-environmental, and economic aspects”. The Climate Fund […]

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How India’s Draft Environmental Impact Assessment Notification impacts Environmental Rights

Smita Gupta and Sehaj Singh Cheema - 30th June 2020

Climate Change| Environmental Rights

The Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change released a draft Environmental Impact Assessment Notification, 2020 (hereinafter ‘the 2020 notification’) in March 2020. This will succeed the previous 2006 Notification, which constituted the regulatory framework for environmental impact assessments (EIA) in India. Far from being a step forward from its predecessor, the 2020 notification […]

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The Urgenda case: human rights obligations to reduce carbon emissions

Rebecca Mooney - 29th January 2020

Climate Change

The Netherlands’ supreme court has ruled that the state has ‘direct legal obligations’ to reduce carbon emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020, compared to 1990 levels (Urgenda v The State of the Netherlands, 20 December 2019), following a detailed Advisory Opinion of the Attorney General and Procurator General.  An unprecedented victory […]

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Teitiota v New Zealand: A Step Forward in the Protection of Climate Refugees under International Human Rights Law?

Adaena Sinclair-Blakemore - 28th January 2020

Climate Change| Migration Asylum and Trafficking

On 7 January 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) issued a landmark ruling in which it recognised, for the first time, that forcibly returning a person to a place where their life would be at risk due to the adverse effects of climate change may violate the right to life under article 6 of […]

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Environmental Human Rights Litigation in Ireland

Jamie McLoughlin - 18th October 2019

Climate Change

Recently, the Irish High Court handed down judgment in the case of Friends of the Irish Environment v The Government of Ireland and Others or ‘Climate Case Ireland’. The case involved a challenge brought via judicial review proceedings, by Friends of the Irish Environment, an environmental NGO, against the ‘National Mitigation Plan’ adopted by the […]

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No Ordinary Lawsuit

Patrick McGinley - 23rd July 2019

Climate Change

In late May, a U.S. Appeals court heard oral arguments in a U.S. government effort to stop a trial in a climate case some have referred to as “the trial of the century.” The case began in 2015 when 21 young Americans from diverse backgrounds filed a lawsuit charging that the United States government and […]

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IPCC Special Report and Human Rights

Alex May - 9th November 2018

Business & Resources & Environment & Development| Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (‘IPCC’) recently released its Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming above 1.5 oC. (Monday 8thOctober 2018). A human rights perspective is useful for understanding what this means and has legal potential for forcing states to take action. The Report The IPCC was asked by the 2015 Paris […]

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Recent Trends in Climate Change Litigation: Colombia’s Amazon and Juliana v U.S   

Everaldo Lamprea and Daniela García - 13th April 2018

Climate Change

On April 4, 2018, the Colombian Supreme Court handed down an important ruling (Tutela, a rights-based injunction) on climate change. The plaintiffs in the case are twenty-five children who argued that the rapid deforestation of the Amazonian basin, which comprises 35% of Colombia’s territory, is contributing to global warming and affecting their rights, as well […]

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