The Green New Deal: On Systemic Justice and the Limits of a Human Rights Framework
The Green New Deal is a United States (U.S.) Congress resolution that proposes a comprehensive plan to address climate change. At the same time, the resolution connects the dots between...
No Ordinary Lawsuit
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...
Multinational Royal Dutch Shell summoned for insufficient efforts in combatting climate change
Citizens and organizations around the world increasingly take their concerns regarding climate change to the courtroom. Such climate change or environmental (public interest) litigation so far has primarily been directed...
UK Supreme Court’s Vedanta Case – Hope for Zambian Communities Affected by Mining Pollution
The recent UK Supreme Court case, Vedanta Resources Plc and another v Lungowe and others, affirms the principle that UK companies operating abroad owe a duty of care to those...
Gabriel Resources v. Romania: Local Residents as Third Parties in Investor-State Dispute Settlement?
The Canadian corporation Gabriel Resources wanted to establish Europe’s largest gold mine in Rosia Montana, Romania. Local villagers and Romanian civil society resisted the corporation and the state, due to...
Gloucester Resources and Its Radical Implications for Indigenous Environmental Justice
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...
IPCC Special Report and Human Rights
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...
The Ogiek Evictions in Kenya – a failed legal solution
The Mau Forest is one of Kenya’s forest reserves, gazetted in 1954 to protect it from deforestation. In 2001, the government carried out an excision of the Eastern Mau region...
A Timely Intervention: Dutch Court declares that the State has Positive Duties under the European Convention on Human Rights to tackle Climate Change
The Court of Appeal in the Netherlands has just issued a landmark judgment concerning environmental human rights and climate change. It has found the Dutch State to be in breach...
Courts and Climate Change II: Appeals Court Upholds Landmark Ruling in Dutch Climate Case
The Hague Court of Appeals has upheld its human rights-based landmark ruling in the historic Climate Case that orders the Dutch government to accelerate its reduction of greenhouse gas emissions....
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, a 1988 Reagan appointee, will leave behind a mixed environmental law legacy. Best known to the public as a crucial swing vote on issues regarding...
State Policy or Individual Right: The Recent Development of Environmental Protection in China
In late June 2018, the Chinese State Council released the three-year action plan to ‘win the battle for blue skies‘, which, among other recent legislative and judicial development in environmental...
