Climate-change litigation is working — but it needs to speed up

The clock is running on climate change. But legal routes to justice for those affected must become quicker, cheaper, and more effective – and that’s exactly what our work at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL) is pushing for. 

Europe is not spared from the effects of the climate crisis. Since the 1980s, it has been warming twice as fast as the global average, becoming the fastest-warming continent on Earth. 

Catastrophic flooding in Italy, Greece, Slovenia, Norway and Sweden following extreme rainfall in 2023 hammered this harsh reality home. In the past year, Southern Europe has suffered from widespread droughts and wildfires – with many countries enduring extreme rainfall and flooding in the same calendar year. 

Against this backdrop, climate litigation – legal cases brought against governments and corporations on climate-related issues – is an increasingly important tool for communities and campaigners to confront the consequences of climate change. 

Since 2018, climate change lawsuits increased globally by nearly 40 percent, with 230 cases filed just last year. EU and European nations have seen some of the highest-profile cases, and, some of the most successful. 

Earlier this year, the European Court of Human Rights issued a landmark ruling in the KlimaSeniorinnen case. Elderly Swiss women successfully argued that the Swiss government’s failure to adequately address climate change violated their fundamental human rights, setting a powerful legal precedent for other countries bound by the European Convention on Human Rights and potentially influencing human rights across 46 member states. 

Litigation against corporations is equally paramount. Dutch environmental organisation Milieudefensie’s historic victory against Shell in the Netherlands – in The Hague, no less, the home of international justice – forced the oil and gas company to commit to slashing its emissions by 45 percent by 2030. 

We are incredibly proud that Milieudefensie consulted BIICL’s research on corporate climate litigation—particularly our national reports on the Netherlands, England, and Germany—in preparing their legal arguments for the appeal in this landmark case.

The problem: speed – The solution: information at pace 

What can be achieved through climate-related legal action is clear. Court cases can transform the legal and regulatory landscapes by identifying and enforcing obligations on governments and corporates around the world, and in galvanising communities to take further action. 

One of the fundamental challenges facing climate litigation — and not just in environmental cases — is the issue of speed. Legal processes are often too slow, and in the legal world, delays almost inevitably lead to higher costs.

What’s more, this process can be even further delayed by another difficulty: communities around the world that are impacted by climate change sometimes struggle with where to start with possible litigation. This is exacerbated by the fact that governments and corporations have access to some of the most skilled legal experts, creating an imbalance.

We have spent the past few years focused on finding a solution: creating an accessible way for judges, litigators, general counsel and communities to identify the best route into corporate climate litigation.

The result is BIICL’s Global Toolbox on Corporate Climate Litigation, launched earlier this year. It is a unique resource which allows legal practitioners and judges to compare climate litigation in jurisdictions around the world and receive training on how they can overlap.

Most importantly, the Toolbox levels the playing field by providing communities around the world access to detailed information about how similar cases have been brought in other countries. 

Apart from its use in high-profile cases like the Milieudefensie case against Shell mentioned above—described as ‘the mother of all climate cases against corporations’ — the toolbox has also been used in an ongoing case brought by an Iraqi father against UK oil giant BP, who claims that the burning off of gas at a BP-run oil field in Iraq caused his 21-year-old son Ali’s tragic death as a result of leukaemia.

In a world where delays drive up costs, faster legal processes lead to more affordable justice. Climate litigation, in particular, demands swift outcomes to drive meaningful change.

All parties involved in environmental cases — judges, lawyers, affected communities, NGOs, and civil society organisations — share a common interest in accelerating these proceedings. Importantly, these faster legal processes can be achieved by learning from what worked, and what didn’t, in other countries.

Even if foreign decisions cannot be directly used by judges, they can still influence the development of key legal principles, shape legislation and speed up accountability.

That’s why we developed the toolbox for climate litigation, and why we call on the EU legal community to use all available tools to seek efficient justice. 

The clock is still running.