Today marks the launch of the World Lawyer’s Pledge on Climate Action. The Pledge is addressed at all members of the legal profession, not just environmental lawyers, and it calls for the mainstreaming and integration of climate concerns into all areas of the law and legal activity. CRRP project lead Prof. Helen Keller is one of the Leading Signatories of the Pledge.
The Pledge’s authors seek to mobilise all members of the legal profession to ‘be a climate lawyer in their own respective fields.’ The Pledge consists of a common chapeau text, reproduced below, along with pledges specific to different branches of the legal profession (legal educators, law students, legal practitioners, judges, lawmakers and civil servants, and legal scholars). Its aim is to harness the potential of lawyers to ‘help realize the full potential of the law as a progressive and transformative force in the climate crisis’, and to ‘recognize our professional responsibility to guide, assist, support, and promote, to the best of our abilities, such legal efforts at all levels—global, regional, national, and local.’ This is not or no longer a political position, they argue, but ‘an objective and existential threat that cuts across any social, political, ideological, or other strata, interests, allegiances, or grievances.’
Here is the text of the Pledge:
We, the undersigned, as concerned members of the legal community, commit ourselves to taking action against climate change. To this end, we will take personal and institutional responsibility, to the best of our abilities and within our respective fields of activity and expertise. We will cultivate a heightened awareness of the relevance of our activities to climate change and vice versa, and seek to integrate, address, and mitigate climate concerns throughout our professional life. We call upon the global legal community—including practicing lawyers, judges, academics, civil servants, law students, lawmakers, and all others working in and with the law—to join us in this vital endeavour. Together, we can initiate, foster, and sustain the change necessary to avert climate catastrophe, and transition our societies and laws towards a sustainable future.
To sign the pledge, click here.
For more on this, see the post on EJIL!Talk, Völkerrechtsblog and Verfassungsblog by Saskia Stucki, Dr Guillaume Futhazar, Tom Sparks, Erik Tuchtfeld and Hannah Foehr.