Climate Change and Fundamental Freedoms: The German Constitutional Court Orders Legislature to Rectify Climate Change Law
On March 24, 2021, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany held certain provisions of the 2019 Federal Climate Change Act (‘KSG’) to be incompatible with their rights under the German...
Climate Claims Before the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies
Each of the major UN human rights treaties establishes a treaty body, a body of independent experts that oversees compliance of the treaty by the States that are party to...
A tale of legal violence and systematic oppression: Indian Supreme Court orders the deportation of Rohingyas
On 8 April 2021, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India refused to grant relief in a petition challenging the detention of Rohingya refugees in the state of...
IEA v Brazil: Rights-Based Climate Litigation to Protect the Brazilian Amazon
“[C]limate stability is a new social need, essential to the preservation of human life and ecological balance.” (IEA v. Brazil, Complaint at 45) Deforestation of the Amazon is not a...
Youth Led Litigation Highlights the Intergenerational Impact of Climate Change
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...
Student protests in South Africa: police brutality claims the life of a bystander
After the ruthless policing of student protests in Johannesburg claimed the life of an innocent bystander, South Africa’s troubled entanglement with police brutality is once again called into question. In...
Supreme Court of Pakistan prohibits execution of condemned prisoners with mental illnesses: A promising start towards reforming Pakistan’s death penalty problem?
On 10 February, 2021, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) delivered its landmark judgement in Safia Bano v. Home Department (along with 2 consolidated cases). This...
Queensland Court to consider Australia’s first ‘climate change’ human rights case
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...
Sadaf Aziz v. Federation of Pakistan: The end of virginity testing in Pakistan?
Across Pakistan, the two finger test (TFT), also known as the virginity and hymen test is conducted on female survivors and victims of rape and sexual abuse. It is a...
Eviction of forest-dwellers in Jammu and Kashmir: Procedural haemorrhage and rights violation
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...
Reproductive Rights and Democracy in Poland
On 22 October 2020, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal held it was unconstitutional for a women to access abortion in cases where there was ‘a medical indication that there existed a...
Environmental protection of children’s right to life: ICCPR General Comment 36
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...
