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Lesson 12 min 20 XP

Climate Litigation

How lawsuits against governments and corporations are becoming a powerful tool to force climate action, and the legal principles driving this wave of litigation.

The Litigation Wave

Climate litigation has exploded in the 2020s. Over 2,500 climate-related cases have been filed worldwide, in courts from The Hague to Montana to Pakistan. These cases use diverse legal theories: constitutional rights to a healthy environment, human rights obligations, corporate duty of care, and fiduciary duties to shareholders. What unites them is the strategy of using courts to achieve what legislatures have failed to deliver: meaningful climate action.

The landmark case is Urgenda Foundation v. Netherlands (2019), where the Dutch Supreme Court ordered the government to reduce emissions by at least 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. The court ruled that the government's inadequate climate policies violated its duty of care to Dutch citizens under the European Convention on Human Rights. This was the first time a national court compelled a government to take specific climate action, and it inspired similar cases worldwide.