What Is Climate Litigation?

Climate litigation against states or national governments refers to lawsuits brought to hold governments accountable for their contribution to, or inadequate response to, climate change (Setzer & Higham, 2022). According to the Grantham Research Institute’s 2023 update, climate litigation continues to expand across jurisdictions, reflecting its growing strategic significance in global environmental governance (LSE Grantham Institute, 2023).

Such cases are typically filed by individuals or civil society groups (including NGOs), and are often grounded in human rights law, constitutional obligations, or duties of care, as in Urgenda Foundation v. The Netherlands (2019) and Neubauer et al. v. Germany (2021).

As climate impacts intensify, more people are turning to courts worldwide to seek remedies for inadequate policy responses. Indeed, the United Nations Environment Programme (2023) reports that over 2,000 climate-related cases have been filed globally in recent years. This growing “wave” of cases poses a fundamental question: can a state be held legally responsible for climate change-related harm?

As the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change (2024) makes clear, the answer is yes: the rules of state responsibility apply in the climate context. The Court affirmed that states have binding obligations under international law to prevent significant environmental harm and protect human rights adversely affected by climate change, and that a failure to take adequate mitigation or adaptation measures may constitute an internationally wrongful act. This clarification situates climate obligations firmly within the established framework of international responsibility, rather than treating them as merely aspirational commitments (Ford, 2025).

On What Legal Basis Can a State Be Sued?

Successful climate claims depend on identifying specific legal obligations owed by governments to people and showing that those obligations have been breached (Setzer & Higham, 2022). Courts have relied on several distinct legal foundations:

• International and regional human rights law
• Constitutional and environmental duties
• Domestic tort/duty of care
• International climate agreements and commitments
  

The following sections examine how each of these bases has been used in climate litigation against states.

Can Human Rights Law be effectively relied upon?

Many climate cases hinge on international or regional human rights instruments, on the theory that climate change poses a severe risk to basic rights and that governments have a duty to protect those rights (National Human Rights Institutions [NHRI], 2024). Inadequate climate action may violate rights such as the right to life and the right to respect for private and family life under Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Urgenda Foundation v. The Netherlands (2019) represents the first instance in which a national court ordered a government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Dutch NGO Urgenda, together with 886 individual claimants, argued that the Netherlands had breached its duty of care and violated human rights by failing to adopt sufficiently ambitious climate policies. The Dutch courts held that the State had a legal obligation to protect its population from the foreseeable risks of dangerous climate change and ordered emissions reductions of at least 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, grounding the decision in Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Crucially, the judgment was not merely symbolic. The Dutch government complied with the ruling by adopting additional mitigation measures, including the early closure of coal-fired power plants. The case demonstrates how climate litigation can translate abstract human rights principles into concrete policy change when supported by effective domestic enforcement mechanisms (Setzer & Higham, 2022).

This principle was reinforced at the regional level in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland (ECtHR, 2024). The Grand Chamber found that Switzerland’s inadequate climate policies violated Article 8 ECHR and required states to adopt “substantial and progressive” mitigation measures. This judgment confirms that human rights law provides an enforceable doctrinal foundation for state climate obligations (Peiffer, Cavicchioli & Esquenazi, 2024).

Can Constitutional Law Protect Future Generations?

Several constitutions impose environmental duties and embed principles of intergenerational equity. In Neubauer et al. v. Germany (2021), young plaintiffs successfully argued that Germany’s climate law deferred emission reductions in a way that disproportionately burdened future generations. The Federal Constitutional Court agreed and required the legislature to strengthen future reduction targets.

Similar reasoning emerged outside Europe. In Future Generations v. Ministry of the Environment (Colombia, 2018), the Colombian Supreme Court recognised the Amazon rainforest as a rights-bearing entity and held that deforestation violated constitutional rights of present and future generations (Wright, 2018).

These cases illustrate how constitutional adjudication increasingly frames climate protection as a matter of fundamental rights protection rather than discretionary environmental policymaking.

Can States Owe a Duty of Care in Climate Matters?

Several courts have recognised that governments owe a duty of care to protect citizens from foreseeable climate risks (Setzer & Higham, 2022).

In Leghari v Federation of Pakistan (2015), the Lahore High Court held that governmental failure to implement national climate policy infringed fundamental rights and breached the state’s duty of care. The Court established a Climate Change Commission to oversee implementation, demonstrating that litigation may address governance failures, not merely emissions targets.

Similarly, in Friends of the Irish Environment v. Ireland (2020), the Irish Supreme Court quashed the National Mitigation Plan for failing to meet statutory and constitutional requirements (Carolan, 2020).

These duty-of-care cases reveal that climate responsibility may arise not only from international law, but also from domestic public and administrative law doctrines.

Do International Climate Agreements Matter in Court?

Although the Paris Agreement is not directly enforceable in most domestic systems, courts increasingly use it as an interpretative benchmark (Saiger, 2019). 

For example, in Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States (ECtHR, 2024), the Grand Chamber dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds but recognised in principle that climate change engages ECHR rights.  

This reasoning has been authoritatively endorsed at the international level. The ICJ Advisory Opinion (2024) confirmed that states have binding obligations under international law to prevent environmental harm, cooperate, and protect human rights affected by climate change. The Court clarified that failure to take adequate mitigation or adaptation measures may constitute an internationally wrongful act, reinforcing the legal, rather than purely political, character of state climate responsibilities (Ford, 2025).

Limits and Significance of Climate Litigation

Establishing a direct causal link between a government’s emissions and specific climate harms remains legally complex (Okedele et al., 2024). Courts also face separation-of-powers concerns when reviewing executive climate policy decisions.

Courts also face separation-of-powers constraints, as judicial intervention in climate policy may raise concerns about institutional competence and democratic legitimacy (see discussion at the Centre for Climate Litigation, University of British Columbia). Even where claimants succeed, enforcement ultimately depends on political compliance.

Nonetheless, climate litigation has emerged as a significant accountability mechanism where political processes fail to deliver adequate climate action. Judicial decisions increasingly frame climate mitigation and adaptation not as discretionary policy choices, but as binding legal obligations grounded in human rights, constitutional law, and principles of state responsibility (Hunt, 2025; United Nations Environment Programme, 2023). 

In this sense, climate litigation represents not judicial activism, but judicial application of established legal norms to contemporary global risks. It demonstrates how international and constitutional doctrines can be operationalised to confront one of the defining challenges of our time.

Reference List Entry / Bibliography (APA)

Carolan, M. (2020, July 31). Supreme Court quashes government’s plan to reduce greenhouse gases. The Irish Times. Retrieved February 9, 2026, from https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/supreme-court/supreme-court-quashes-government-s-plan-to-reduce-greenhouse-gases-1.4318578

Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States, European Court of Human Rights (2024). https://www.echr.coe.int

Ford, M. (2025, July 24). ICJ releases advisory opinion on states’ obligations to address climate change. Lawfare. Retrieved February 9, 2026, from https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/icj‑releases‑advisory‑opinion‑on‑states‑‑obligations‑to‑address‑climate‑change

Friends of the Irish Environment v. Ireland, Irish Supreme Court (2020). https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/supreme-court/supreme-court-quashes-government-s-plan-to-reduce-greenhouse-gases-1.4318578

Future Generations v. Ministry of the Environment, Colombian Supreme Court (2018). Deutsche Welle. https://www.dw.com/en/colombias-top-court-orders-government-to-protect-amazon-for-future-generations/a-43288343

Hunt, M. (2025, October 27). Climate litigation playing an increasing role in governance mechanisms, says UN. Global Government Forum. Retrieved February 9, 2026, from https://www.globalgovernmentforum.com/climate-litigation-playing-an-increasing-role-in-governance-mechanisms-says-un/

International Court of Justice. (2024). Advisory opinion on the obligations of states in respect of climate change. https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/183/advisory-opinions

National Human Rights Institutions. (2024). Climate litigation based on human rights. In Climate and human rights (Chapter 9). Retrieved February 9, 2026, from https://www.nhri.no/en/report/climate-and-human-rights/9-climate-litigation-based-on-human-rights/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Neubauer et al. v. Germany, Federal Constitutional Court (2021). https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/EN/Home/home_node.html

Okedele, P. O., Aziza, O. R., Oduro, P., & Ishola, A. O. (2024). Climate change litigation as a tool for global environmental policy reform: A comparative study of international case law. Open Access Research Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 8(2), 104–115. https://doi.org/10.53022/oarjms.2024.8.2.0070

Peiffer, C., Cavicchioli, C., & Esquenazi, J. (2024). European Court of Human Rights rules that Switzerland’s failure to implement sufficient measures to combat climate change violates human rights. Sustainable Futures, Linklaters. Retrieved February 9, 2026, from https://sustainablefutures.linklaters.com/post/102j57h/european-court-of-human-rights-rules-that-switzerlands-failure-to-implement-suff

Saiger, A.‑J. (2019). Domestic courts and the Paris Agreement’s climate goals: The need for a comparative approach. Transnational Environmental Law, 9(1), 37–54. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2047102519000256

Setzer, J., & Higham, C. (2022). Global trends in climate change litigation: 2022 snapshot. Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved February 9, 2026, from https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/global-trends-in-climate-change-litigation-2022-snapshot/

United Nations Environment Programme. (2023). Global climate litigation report 2023. UNEP. https://www.unep.org/resources/report/global-climate-litigation-report-2023

United Nations Secretary-General. (2023). Intergenerational equity and climate change. United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/climate-change/intergenerational-equity

Urgenda Foundation v. The Netherlands, Supreme Court of the Netherlands (2019). https://www.urgenda.nl/en/themas/climate-case/

Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland, European Court of Human Rights (2024). https://www.echr.coe.int

Wright, L. (2018, April 6). Colombia’s top court orders government to protect Amazon. Deutsche Welle. Retrieved February 9, 2026, from https://www.dw.com/en/colombias-top-court-orders-government-to-protect-amazon-for-future-generations/a-43288343