Islam Attia (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) - Department of International Law; London School of Economics - Law School; Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law) has posted The Judicialization of Climate Change: The Technique and Its Proliferation on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
On 29 March 2023, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) requested an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of climate change under several regimes including international human rights law. Due to the failure of political processes, climate change is currently subject to “judicialization” by domestic, regional, and international courts, majorly through “rights-based” litigation. Judicialization by way of evolutive interpretation of human rights is of high potential as it could be juris-generative and law-creating. While these climate proceedings are mostly examined in isolation, this paper seeks to encourage different types of lawyers (international/ domestic, generalists/specialists, practitioners/theorists, etc.) to speak and complement each other through common analytical frameworks. Accordingly, this paper addresses this phenomenon from the lens of “judicialization,” which captures the commonality of all these climate proceedings. The paper reveals how climate change is subject to judicialization, the technique used by courts, its proliferation, in addition to the challenges and limits of this process.
Highly recommended.
