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Youth Led Litigation Highlights the Intergenerational Impact of Climate Change

- 26th March 2021

Children's Rights| Environmental Rights| Right to Equality and Non-Discrimination| Right to Life| Right to Privacy

The impact of dangerous climate change on our children and future generations has been highlighted by campaigns around the world such as Fridays for Future, which grew out of Greta Thunberg’s brave step of starting a ‘school strike for climate’ back in August 2018. Litigation led by youth has also begun to play its part […]

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Queensland Court to consider Australia’s first ‘climate change’ human rights case

- 9th March 2021

Business & Human Rights| Environmental Rights

As an increasing number of cases worldwide link climate change and human rights (for instance, see here), the first litigation of this kind in Australia is proceeding before Queensland’s Land Court. Youth Verdict and Bimblebox Alliance (the Applicants) object to applications to develop a thermal coal project, arguing that granting the applications would be incompatible […]

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Eviction of forest-dwellers in Jammu and Kashmir: Procedural haemorrhage and rights violation

- 27th January 2021

Environmental Rights

The Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Committee on Forest Encroachments has recently published a list of forestland encroachers in the Union Territory (UT) pursuant to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed in the J&K High Court. The PIL demanded the settlement of pending complaints against forestland encroachment. The Court ruled that for such an exercise to […]

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Indemnity clauses in Mining Development Agreements in Zambia

Mwai Daka - 25th January 2021

Business & Human Rights| Environmental Rights

Zambia has signed indemnity agreements with numerous multinational corporations investing in her mining sector. The agreements enable subsidiaries of international firms to be exempted from liability for environmental pollution that affects both the ecosystem and humans that inhabit it. Though Zambian courts have enjoyed some success in hold mining companies liable for environmental degradation, indemnity […]

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Kabwe mine: taking rights seriously in a toxic city

- 21st October 2020

Environmental Rights

Mining activities in Zambia, while economically beneficial (accounting for roughly 70 per cent of GDP), have produced negative effects, not least pollution to the environment.  The scale of industrial pollution across the Copperbelt is gaining widespread awareness, recently coming before the UK Supreme Court. Medical studies (here and here) confirm that children living close to […]

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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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Using Human Rights to Protect the Environment in Kenya

Alvin Attalo - 10th September 2020

Environmental Rights

Kenya’s Environment and Land Court recently awarded the inhabitants of Owino-Uhuru village in Mombasa, damages worth 1.3 billion Kenyan Shillings and further directed that 700 million be dedicated towards an environmental clean-up exercise. This case illustrates how human rights can be used to protect the environment as well as the rights of communities affected by […]

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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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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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Gloucester Resources and Its Radical Implications for Indigenous Environmental Justice

Sakshi Aravind - 18th March 2019

Business & Resources & Environment & Development| Environmental Rights

The decision by New South Wales Land and Environment court, Australia, rejecting the appeal by Gloucester Resources for the proposed Rocky Hill coal mine in Hunter’s Valley, has gathered public interest for all the right reasons (Gloucester Resources v Minister of Planning “Gloucester Resources”). The decision emphasized the incompatibility between new coalmines and Australia’s obligations […]

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