Is climate change litigation sustainable?
(Poster)
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A Dutch court recently found against the Dutch State for having failed to do enough to fight climate change. In the ruling, issued in June 2016, a district court of The Hague allowed the claim filed by the environmental organization Urgenda, arguing that the Netherlands was infringing the principle of sustainable development, among others. Such a departure of the standard of conduct expected from the Dutch state amounts to negligence, according to the court decision. Such a case has had a huge influence, not only in the Netherlands but internationally, and not only from a political perspective but also from a legal one. By considering the Dutch State guilty of not doing enough to achieve the internationally agreed goals in order to fight climate change, this ruling has automatically become a leading case of comparative environmental case law and a pattern or model template for similar lawsuits brought in other countries (such as the Klimaatzaak case in Belgium, the claim of Greenpeace Norge and Natur og Ungdom in Norway, or the claim of a Pakistani lawyer before the Lahore court, among others). Interestingly enough, one of the basis on which several of these claims are grounded is the principle of sustainability (or sustainable development). Indeed, sustainable development is one of the very cornerstones on which Urgenda's activity is based, according to its bylaws. The poster exposes the meaning and scope of that principle in the context of environmental liability litigation in general and climate change litigation in particular. Taking the Dutch ruling a starting point, it inquires to what extent sustainability may or should induce or provoke changes in the present environmental liability law. In particular, it explores whether, and to what extent, tort liability may be established for having failed to keep up to the sustainable development principle and how this idea may have an impact on the practical application of the existing liability regimes. To that regard, attention is paid to several legal systems from a comparative perspective. It is concluded that the real impact of the Urgenda decision may eventually turn out to be smaller than initially expected.