Summary:
On 20 March 2023, a first-instance court in Japan heard a civil case concerning the construction and operation of new coal-fired power plants brought by the citizens of Kobe. Two weeks previously, on 9 March 2023, the Japanese Supreme Court refused to hear its first-ever administrative climate case concerning the same set of facts, giving no substantive reasons for doing so. In the civil case, which was filed in 2018, 40 citizens of Kobe brought suit against three corporations involved in the construction and operation of the plants. They argued that these plants would impact themtheir personal rights and right to a peaceful life both through air pollution and through their contribution to the climate change.
As Grace Nishikawa and Masako Ichihara have explained on the Sabin Center’s Climate Law Blog, ‘personal rights’ are established through case-law and frequently enter into play in environmental cases. They protect personal well-being, including the rights to life, bodily integrity, health, and a peaceful life (the last of which the authors compare to the right to respect for private and family life under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights). The plaintiffs in this case invoked these personal rights, arguing that the coal plants would aggravate climate change, leading to extreme heat and rainfall events that would directly affect them. In their submissions, they made arguments based on international and comparative law, mentioning carbon budgets, the Paris Agreement, the Dutch Urgenda case, and the Glasgow Climate Pact.
In its first-instance judgment, the Kobe District Court accepted that greenhouse emissions, including those from the plant, contribute to climate change and can violate personal rights. However, it found the risk of harm to the individual plaintiffs to be too uncertain, and rejected their claim, noting the difficulty of causally attributing responsibility for damage related to climate change.
Concerning the alleged violation of the right to a peaceful life, which the plaintiffs argued contains a right to a healthy and peaceful life, the Court likewise rejected this claim, for the same reasons, finding that fears about climate change were not concrete enough to constitute human rights violation. The Court also noted that there was no legally recognized right stable climate in Japan.
Concerning the additional air pollution complaint, the Court found that this was not serious enough to constitute a concrete danger to the plaintiffs’ rights. It also did not engage with the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction halting the operation of the coal plants.
Appeal:
Climate Case Chart reports that an appeal in this case was filed on 4 January 2023.
Further reading:
The above draws on the following two key sources:
- Grace Nishikawa and Masako Ichihara, ‘Japanese Courts Admit the Operation of New Coal-Fired Power Plants in Kobe’, Sabin Center Climate Law blog, 26 June 2023, https://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2023/06/26/japanese-courts-admit-the-operation-of-new-coal-fired-power-plants-in-kobe/.
- Grace Nishikawa, ‘Summarised Translation of the Complaint: Citizens’ Committee on the Kobe Coal-Fired Power Plant v. Kobe Steel Ltd., et al.’, available here.
The original case documents (in Japanese) are available via Climate Case Chart.
Suggested citation:
Kobe District Court, Citizens’ Committee on the Kobe Coal-Fired Power Plant v. Kobe Steel Ltd., et al., Judgment of 20 March 2023.
Last updated:
20 July 2023