12 August 2022
Extra-Constitutional Commitment Mechanisms
The solution to many public dilemmas requires long-term effort by successive generations. Such situation arises whenever the solution to a public dilemma cannot be implemented instantaneously but is dependent on the continuous effort of future governments (and their citizens). In this post I discuss the problem of securing intergenerational cooperation, focusing on the challenge of designing long-term commitment mechanisms. I will also reflect briefly on the tension between commitment mechanisms and the democratic ideal of citizen sovereignty (allowing each generation to make its own choices). Continue reading >>
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10 August 2022
The Future of European Climate Change Litigation
On 7 June 2022 the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) relinquished jurisdiction to the Grand Chamber to hear the application lodged on 28 January 2021 on behalf of Damien Carême, former mayor of the Commune of Grande Synthe in France. While the case shares some characteristics with other climate change cases pending before the Court, it differs in some key respects, making it a unique case of its kind at the moment. The Court will have to be open to a shift towards a more ecological interpretation of the Convention and demonstrate its ability and talent to rise to the historic task required. Continue reading >>
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28 Juli 2022
Net Zero, Full Transparency
Earlier this month, during a record-breaking heatwave and a Conservative party leadership contest that will determine the next UK Prime Minister, the High Court quietly issued a judgment that may have nearly as much impact on the course of UK climate policy over the coming decades than either of the other events. The High Court judgement in the Net Zero Strategy legal challenge can be considered a landmark victory. On the one hand, the case can be understood as a narrow administrative law challenge to the process by which a government decision was made. On the other hand, however, the judgment can be understood in the context of a growing number of cases around the world which demonstrate the critical role of the law and the courts in creating accountability for climate action – something that is increasingly vital in the face of a warming world and a lack of public trust in key institutions. Continue reading >>
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18 Juli 2022
Holidays with smog
The Polish energy policy is seeing further controversies. The Minister of Climate and the Environment, Anna Moskwa, allowed poor quality coal to be sold for 60 days. This means that, up to 28 August, households are able to buy bituminous coal with a higher content of sulphur and mercury, as well as harmful mining waste, e.g. mining sludge. This decision is already causing considerable controversy not only among climate activists, but also among voivodship (local) authorities that are implementing so-called anti-smog resolutions. Continue reading >>
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01 Juni 2022
Travelling Courts and Strategic Visitation
It is not very often that an on-site meeting of a German higher regional court makes its way to the front pages of international news media. Yet, the reported visit of judges and court-appointed experts from the OLG Hamm, one of 24 higher regional courts in Germany, has achieved just that when the nine-person group traveled to the Andean city of Huaraz in Peru in late May 2022. This was after all no ordinary visit. They had come to see with their own eyes whether Saúl Luciano Lliuya’s house is threatened by outburst floods from Lake Palcacocha. We argue that this form of “strategic visitation”, similar to strategic litigation, might not result in a judicial breakthrough but holds important symbolic and political significance. Continue reading >>16 Mai 2022
Climate Change Litigation Before the ECtHR
Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland is the first case of climate change litigation before the ECtHR where all domestic remedies have been exhausted. The Chamber to which the case had been allocated relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber. This reinforces the potential of the case to become a landmark ruling determining the Court’s approach to climate change.
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07 September 2021
World Lawyers’ Pledge on Climate Action
The world is facing climate emergency, one of a series of overlapping and mutually reinforcing environmental crises. In 2017, more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries signed the World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, urging the world to take immediate action against the current trajectory of catastrophic climate change. We, as concerned lawyers, have heard the world scientists’ call, and believe it is time for the legal community at large to organize and join the global fight against climate change. Continue reading >>
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28 Juli 2021
Lessons from the French Citizens’ Climate Convention
On July 6, the French Prime Minister announced that the government was abandoning the bill to enshrine in the Constitution the preservation of the environment. He invoked the Senate's inertia to justify renouncing the bill, which needed to be adopted in the same terms by the two houses of parliament. The climate referendum that had been announced by the President of the Republic in December 2020 was thus abandoned. The decision was not a surprise, as many doubted the political feasibility or the actual willingness to implement it. Continue reading >>
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07 Juli 2021
The New EU Climate Law
On 30 June 2021, the European Parliament and the Council signed the EU Climate Law. The Law has drawn a lot of attention, stirred not least because of its head-line grabbing name. Was it merely meant to be a symbolic law to enshrine the EU’s climate objectives into law and celebrate the EU Green Deal? Or was it meant to be a new governance framework that changes the way decisions are taken on EU and Member State level? Continue reading >>
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04 Juli 2021
The Grande Synthe Saga Continues
France’s highest administrative court ruled that the French government had failed to take sufficient action to mitigate climate change and ordered it to take additional measures to redress that failure. The Grande Synthe II decision of 1 July 2021 follows the findings by the Conseil d’État in a previous decision that France’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets constitute legal obligations that are enforceable against the state. However, how, and when to redress France’s failure have been, to a broad extent, left to the discretion of the government. This all but ensures the Grande Synthe saga to continue. Continue reading >>
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