The Urgenda case: human rights obligations to reduce carbon emissions
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...
Environment
Teitiota v New Zealand: A Step Forward in the Protection of Climate Refugees under International Human Rights Law?
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...
Environmental Human Rights Litigation in Ireland
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...
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...
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