Climate Change Litigation and the Need for ‘Radical Change'

This article looks at climate change litigation with particular focus on the role of courts and the judiciary. It argues that contrary to current (conventional) approaches to the climate change movement, including climate change litigation, climate change is itself a novel, global, problem requiring ‘radical change’ to present approaches. This article reveals that present scholarship in the field of climate change litigation is unbalanced and greatly impacts the inclusion of Global South cases such that their contributions are overlooked, thus impeding the migration of knowledge. Within this, a major issue is the definition of «climate change litigation», for which a narrow approach has appeared to become the normative one despite broad agreement that the phrase is ambiguous. As global constitutionalism and rights-based claims now make headway into the Global North’s fora of climate change litigation, we find that the Global South has in fact long demonstrated boldness and progressiveness to such cases; suggesting greater potential impact on litigation and the broader movement.