My colleague Scott Moore and I were guests on the Energy Now! Podcast, produced by the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, for an episode entitled “Navigating the Geopolitical Risks of Solar Geoengineering,” to discuss our law review article on this topic forthcoming in the Harvard International Law Journal, and shorter essay on the subject in Foreign Affairs.
climate change
The Power of Rights-Based Climate Change Litigation
My law review article exploring the influence and impact of rights-based climate change litigation has now been published in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, and the full article can be downloaded from SSRN. The abstract is posted below:
An increasing number of legal challenges to government climate change policies are being advanced on the basis that states are violating the human rights or constitutional rights of applicants. A number of high-profile cases in Europe have upheld such claims and ordered governments to adjust their policies. But questions remain regarding how effective such rights-based cases may be in the effort to enforce climate change law obligations or encourage government responses to the crisis. This Article explores how such rights-based cases may exercise greater influence than is typically understood.
After explaining briefly the relevant human rights and climate change law, this Article examines in some detail a sample of rights-based climate cases that reflect a common pattern of features that provide the basis for such an explanation. The cases illustrate the incorporation of both international human rights law norms, and international climate change law obligations and standards, which are used to assess the legitimacy of government climate change policy. The courts increasingly rely upon the science of climate change institutions and the arguments and doctrines developed by foreign courts and international tribunals, including new doctrines for rejecting typical “drop in the ocean” causation and justiciability arguments traditionally relied upon to dismiss climate change cases.
Speaking on Rights-Based Climate Change Litigation at Case Western
It was a pleasure to speak at the ABILA-sponsored conference, Climate Change and International Law at a Crossroads, at Case Western Reserve Univ. School of Law. I presented a paper on the significance of rights-based climate change litigation, on a panel that included Michael Kelly and Victoria Haneman of Creighton Univ. Law School, Alexander Pearl of Oklahoma Univ. Law School, and Rebecca Hamilton of American Univ. Law School. The panel discussion was great, and the rest of the conference was outstanding, with keynotes from Chile Eboe-Osuji of TMU Law School and former President of the I.C.C., and John Knox, former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment.
Climate Change as a National Security Issue at the ABA National Security Law Conference
It was an interesting experience to speak on a panel addressing the climate change crisis as a national security issue, at the ABA Annual Review of National Security Law Conference, on Nov. 17, 2022, along with Mark Nevitt of Emory Law, Erin Sikorsky of the Center for Climate and Security, and Marcus King of Georgetown University. With over 300 people in the room, mostly national security lawyers, there was a surprising mix of views on how seriously one should take climate change as a threat to national security, or as an issue that implicate national security thinking! Very interesting.