Category: Emissions reductions/mitigation

Categories
2020 Children and young people Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation Indigenous peoples' rights Public trust doctrine Standing/admissibility United States of America

Juliana et al. v. USA et al.

Summary:
On 12 August 2015, the Juliana v. the United States case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. The 21 youth plaintiffs in this case, who were represented by the NGO “Our Children’s Trust”, asserted that the government had violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty and property through its climate change-causing actions. Among other things, they argued that they had suffered psychological harms, damage to property, impairment to their recreational interests, and that their medical conditions had been exacerbated by the effects of climate change. They sought declaratory relief and an injunction ordering the government to implement a plan to phase out fossil fuels. Moreover, they stated that the government had failed to protect essential public trust resources by encouraging and permitting the combustion of fossil fuels. After extensive proceedings, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the dismissal of the case in 2024, and the US Supreme Court refused to grant certoriari in March 2025, effectively ending the case.

The Ninth Circuit’s 2020 decision:
The Government filed a large number of motions to stay or deny these procedings. However, U.S. District Court of Oregon Judge Ann Aiken declined to dismiss the lawsuit. She ruled that access to a clean environment constitutes a fundamental right. Judge Aiken’s judgment was reversed by a Ninth Circuit Panel on 17 January 2020 due to the plaintiffs’ lack of standing to sue. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recognized the gravity of the evidence on the plaintiffs’s injuries from climate change. The panel of judges also recognized the existence of harms to the applicants, and the plausibility of arguing that these harms had been caused by climate change. Nevertheless, the Court held that the plaintiffs’ requested remedies should be addressed by the executive and legislative branches and not by the courts. As a result, they “[r]eluctantly” held that “such relief is beyond [their] constitutional power.”

One of the three judges affirmed the plaintiff’s constitutional climate rights in a dissent, arguing that the case sought to enforce the US Constitution’s most basic principle: “that the Constitution does not condone the Nation’s willful destruction.” Accordingly, she held that the plaintiffs had standing to challenge the government’s conduct, and had presented sufficient evidence to press their constitutional rights claims at trial.

Further proceedings:
On 9 March 2021, the plaintiffs filed a motion to amend their complaint and adjust the remedy sought in the case. After settlement talks ended without resolution in November 2021, and Judge Aiken granted the plaintiff’s motion for leave to file a second amended complaint in June 2023. The plaintiffs argued that the government’s failure to address climate change violated their rights under the Fifth and Ninth Amendments and the Public Trust Doctrine. The amended complaint requested the court to issue an injunction restraining the defendants from carrying out policies, practices that render the national energy system unconstitutional in a manner that harms the plaintiffs.

In December 2023, the court partially denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss the second amended complaint, allowing claims related to the right to a climate system capable of sustaining life under the Due Process Clause and the Public Trust Doctrine to proceed. However, in February 2024, the government filed an emergency petition for a writ of mandamus, which was granted by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in May 2024. This order required the district court to dismiss the case and preclude any further amendments. Subsequently, the district court dismissed the case.

These were complex proceedings, with several intermediate filings and actions. However, on 24 March 2025, the US Supreme Court denied the plaintiffs’ petition for a writ of certoriari. The plaintiffs had sought review of the order of the Ninth Circuit of May 2024, which granted the government’s request for a writ of mandamus and ordered the district court to dismiss the case. At the time of writing, this seems to have effectively ended the case.

Proceedings before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights:
On 23 September 2025, the NGO Our Children’s Trust announced that it had filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights alleging climate-related violations of human rights by the government of the United States of America on behalf of some of the plaintiffs in the present case. A separate database entry on those proceedings can be found here.

Further reading:
The full text of the Ninth Circuit’s order on interlocutory appeal is available here.

Documents on the proceedings before the Supreme Court can be found here.

For scholarly comment on this case, see among others:

  • Melissa Powers, ‘Juliana v United States: The next frontier in US climate mitigation?’ 27 RECIEL 199 (2018).
  • William Montgomery, ‘Juliana v. United States: The Ninth Circuit’s Opening Salvo for a New Era of Climate Litigation’, 34 Tul. Env’t L.J. 341 (2021).
  • Nathanial Levy, ‘Juliana and the Political Generativity of Climate Litigation’, 43 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 479 (2019).
  • Chloe N. Kempf, ‘Why Did So Many Do So Little? Movement Building and Climate Change Litigation in the Time of Juliana v. United States‘, 99 Tex. L. Rev. 1005 (2020-2021).

Suggested citation:
Juliana and Others v. the United States and Others, 947 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2020).

Last updated:
15 January 2026.

Categories
Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation European Convention on Human Rights Paris Agreement Private and family life Right to life The Netherlands

Urgenda Foundation v. the Netherlands

Summary:
This case, brought in 2013 by the Urgenda foundation and hundreds of Dutch citizens against the Netherlands, has become the leading climate and human rights judgment, and served as inspiration for similar litigation around the world. The final judgment in this case was issued in 2019, and in this case the domestic courts not only found that the Dutch climate policy had violated Articles 2 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the rights to life and respect for private and family life, respectively), but also issued an injunction requiring greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Remedies ordered:
District Court of The Hague had previously ruled that the government was obligated to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 in comparison to 1990 levels. The District Court’s decision was appealed by the State. The Court of Appeal upheld the District Court’s decision on 9 October 2018. After the State’s appeal to the Supreme Court, the Supreme court ruled in favour of Urgenda and held that the government has a legal duty to prevent dangerous climate change.

Date of final domestic judgment:
20 December 2019

More on this case:
For the final judgment in Dutch, click here.

For the summary provided by the Supreme Court (English), click here.

Recommended reading:
Ingrid Leijten, ‘Human Rights v. Insufficient Climate Action: The Urgenda Case’ 37(2) Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights (2019)

Benoit Mayer, ‘The State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation: Ruling of the Court of Appeal of The Hague (9 October 2018)’ 8(1) Transnational Environmental Law (2019), 167-192.

Maiko Meguro, ‘State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation’ 114(4) American Journal of International Law (2020), 729-735.

Suggested citation:
Dutch Supreme Court (Hoge Raad), Urgenda Foundation v. the Netherlands, Judgment of 20 December 2019, No. 19/00135, ECLI:NL:HR:2019:2006.

Categories
2019 Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation Gender / women-led Non-discrimination Pakistan Paris Agreement Private and family life Public trust doctrine Right to a healthy environment Right to life Uncategorized Vulnerability

Maria Khan et al. v. Federation of Pakistan et al.

Summary
Five people identifying themselves as women filed a writ petition, under Article 199 of the Constitution of Pakistan, against the Federation of Pakistan, the Ministry of Climate Change, the Ministry of Energy, the Alternative Energy Development Board, and the Central Power Purchasing Agency. The petitioners alleged a violation of their fundamental rights, recognized by Articles 4 (inalienable rights), 9 (right to life), 14 (right to privacy) and 25 (equality of citizens, notably regardless of sex) of the Constitution of Pakistan, as the respondents infringed their right to a clean and healthy environment and a climate capable of sustaining human life (as recognized in the Leghari v. Pakistan case) by failing to take climate change mitigation measures, and specifically measures to develop renewable energy resources and transition to a low-carbon economy.

The petitioners highlighted that Pakistan had ratified the Paris Agreement and submitted its INDC, committing to a reduction of 20% of its 2030 projected GHG emissions, but then failed to engage in any renewable energy power project. This was seen to represent an abdication of the respondents’ responsibilities under the Public Trust Doctrine (namely their duty to act as trustees of the natural resources of the country), and a violation of the jurisprudence of the seized Court on environmental and climate justice.

Notably, the petitioners claimed that being women and mothers, they are particularly endangered by global warming and disadvantaged in the context of the climate crisis, as documented in scientific research and international reports. Therefore, the respondents have allegedly violated Article 25 of the Constitution of Pakistan in that climate change disproportionately affects the rights of the petitioners and more broadly of all Pakistani women.

The remedies demanded by the petitioners are: the declaration of the violation of the above-mentioned fundamental rights and of the breach of Pakistan’s commitments under the Paris Agreement; the declaration of a positive duty on the respondents to encourage and support the development of renewable energy projects to reduce GHG emissions and mitigate climate change impacts; the order to implement and enforce the Paris Agreement to the fullest extent possible and to create and implement an integrated policy towards climate resilient development.

Date of filing:
14 February 2019, Misc. Writ 8960/19

Date of last hearing:
21 January 2021

Jurisdiction:
High Court of Lahore, Pakistan

Documents:

  • Petition (in English, via Sabin Center for Climate Change Law’s Global Climate Litigation Database)
  • Order (in English, via Sabin Center for Climate Change Law’s Global Climate Litigation Database)

More information:
Independently of the above-summarized judicial proceeding, on 21 July 2022, the Government of Pakistan adopted the “Climate Change Gender Action Plan of the Government and People of Pakistan” (you can read it here).

Last Updated:
18 May 2023

Categories
2019 Deforestation Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation India Paris Agreement Public trust doctrine Right to life

Riddhima Pandey v. Union of India and Others

Summary:

The petitioner, Riddhima Pandey, a 9-year old girl residing in the Indian State of Uttarakhand, approached the National Green Tribunal (a special tribunal exercising jurisdiction over environmental cases) in order to review the State and concerned authorities’ inaction on mitigation measures in the face of climate science, and the systemic failure to implement environmental laws (in a manner that addresses climate change). The petitioner based her claim on the ground that the States duty to take the concerned climate action arose out of the public trust doctrine, which the Supreme Court of India has previously held to be based in fundamental rights, directive principles and the preamble of the Indian Constitution. The application in this case was explicitly inspired by the petition in Juliana v. US where also, the child petitioners invoked the public trust doctrine to contest the US government’s inaction.

The petitioner prayed for the court to, among other things, direct the concerned governmental authorities to properly account for the climate related impacts of industrial and infrastructure projects while granting environmental clearances, account for climate impacts of every individual case of forest diversion and ensuring sufficient compensatory afforestation, direct the government to prepare a national greenhouse gas emissions inventory as well as a national carbon budget against which particular projects’ emissions impacts could be assessed.

Date of decision:

15 January 2019

Tribunal’s decision:

The National Green Tribunal dismissed the case, reasoning that there is no reason to presume that the existing environmental legislations and regulations already address climate change and require that climate related impacts be sufficiently accounted for during environmental impact assessments.

Status of the case:

Decided.

Suggested case citation:

National Green Tribunal (New Delhi, India), Ridhima Pandey v. Union of India and Others, Application No. 187/2017, judgment of 15 January 2019)

Case documents:

For the petition filed before the National Green Tribunal on 25 March 2017, click here.

For the order of the National Green Tribunal on 15 January 2019, click here.

Categories
2018 Biodiversity Domestic court Emissions reductions/mitigation Imminent risk Margin of appreciation Nepal Paris Agreement Right to a healthy environment Right to health Right to life Right to subsistence/food

Padam Bahadur Shrestha v. Office of Prime Minister and Others

Summary:
The petitioner, Padam Bahadur Shrestha, had applied to the concerned authorities in Nepal to enact a separate law on climate change in August 2018, but did not receive a response. He thus filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Nepal alleging that the situation in Nepal is marked by absence of a special climate change legislation, inadequacies in existing environmental legislation in addressing climate change, and poor implementation of the State’s climate change policy. He argued that this suffices to establish a violation of the right to life, right to live in a healthy and clean environment, right to health care and right to food found in Articles 16, 30, 35, and 36 of the Nepali Constitution.

Date of decision:

25 December 2018

Court’s decision:

The Supreme Court of Nepal found that an amendment to the existing laws and introduction of a new consolidated law that addresses climate change was necessary and issued detailed directions on what features the new law must contain. It based this order on the reasons that such would facilitate Nepal’s compliance with its obligations under international law, including the Paris Agreement and that climate mitigation and adaptation directly concern fundamental rights including the right to life, right to have nutritious food and the right to a clean environment. It further held that although the Environmental Protection Act of 1997 addressed environmental protection along the dimension of climate change, its provisions were inadequate regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Status of the case:

Decided.

Suggested case citation:

The Supreme Court of Nepal, Padam Bahadur Shreshta v Office of the Prime Minister and Others, NKP, Part 61, Vol. 3, judgment of 25 December 2018.

Case documents:

For the judgment of the Supreme Court of Nepal (in Nepali), click here.

For an unofficial English translation of the judgment (authored by Hardik Subedi), click here.

Categories
Canada Emissions reductions/mitigation Indigenous peoples' rights Inter-American Human Rights System Right to culture Right to health Right to property Right to subsistence/food

Arctic Athabaskan Council v. Canada

Summary:
This case, brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights by Athabaskan people living in Canada, concerned alleged rights violations relating to Arctic warming and melting caused by Canadian black carbon emissions. The case alleged that Canada, by failing to regulate black carbon emissions, had violated various human rights of the Athabaskan people, including their rights to health, subsistence, property, and culture.

The complaint:
The applicants in this case allege that Canada’s emissions of black carbon, which is a component of sooty fine-particle pollution and stems largely from diesel emissions and the burning of biomass, is particularly harmful to their rights and way of life because it is emitted in or near the Arctic.

The applicants submit that the warming effect of black carbon on the global climate is second only to carbon dioxide. In the Arctic, black carbon warms in two ways: it absorbs sunlight in the air, and it reduces the reflectivity of ice and snow-covered surfaces, accelerating their rate of melting.

In particular, the applicants cite their right to culture, particularly their ability to transmit their cultural knowledge to future generations, because “Arctic warming and melting has made the weather, the hunt, and the behaviors and occurrence of fish and wildlife so erratic that elders no longer feel confident in teaching younger people traditional ways.”

The also argue that warming and melting has affected the integrity of the land, compromising their right to property. This includes floods, forest fires, melting permafrost, erosion-related harms and landslides, as well as the destruction of cultural and historic sites and increased difficulty in accessing resources. The Athabaskans also invoke their right to means of subsistence, citing difficulties in accessing traditional food sources and adverse effects on biodiversity. Lastly, they cite their right to health, arguing that the loss of traditional foods has adversely affected the Athabaskan way of life. Melting permafrost is affecting water quality, and the loss of traditional food sources is forcing the people to rely on purchased food, leading to increases in the prevalence of chronic diseases.

Before the Commission, the applicants allege that the Canadian state’s acts and omissions represent an ongoing violation of their human rights, and that there are no domestic remedies suitable for addressing these violations. They argue that Canada has failed to take action to reduce black carbon emissions, and that such action could substantially remedy the Arctic warming and melting that are causing the violations at stake. They accordingly request the Commission to investigate and confirm the alleged harms; set forth the facts and applicable law, declaring a violation of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man; and recommend steps to limit black carbon emissions and protect Arctic Athabaskan culture and resources from Arctic warming and melting.

Forum:
Inter-American Commission of Human Rights

Date filed:
23 April 2013

Status of case:
Pending

Suggested citation:
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Arctic Athabaskan Peoples v. Canada, petition submitted on 23 April 2013, case pending.

Further information:
For more on this petition, see

The full text of the petition has been made available here by EarthJustice here: https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/AAC_PETITION_13-04-23a.pdf

For a summary of the petition, provided by EarthJustice, click here: https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/library/legal_docs/summary-of-inuit-petition-to-inter-american-council-on-human-rights.pdf

Further reading:
Agnieszka Szpak, ‘Arctic Athabaskan Council’s Petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Climate Change—Business as Usual or a Breakthrough?’ 162 Climatic Change (2020) 1575–1593.

Categories
2006 Biodiversity Emissions reductions/mitigation Extraterritorial obligations Freedom of movement Indigenous peoples' rights Inter-American Human Rights System Private and family life Right to culture Right to health Right to property Right to subsistence/food United States of America

Sheila Watt-Cloutier et al. v. the United States of America

Summary:
Filed in 2005 by members of the Inuit people living in Canada, this application concerned the climate change-related responsibility of the United States of America. The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights refused to examine the case on the grounds that the information provided was insufficient.

More information on the petition:
In this petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuk woman and Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference living in Canada, sought relief from human rights violations related to climate change caused by the acts and omissions of the United States. Ms. Watt-Cloutier, on behalf of herself, 62 other individuals, and all of the Inuit of the arctic regions of the United States of America and Canada, sought relief against the effects of climate change, which — it was argued — have the potential to affect every aspect of the life of the Inuit people, including the quality of the permafrost, land and water, biodiversity and food sources, and cultural rights. The petitioners relied on the United States’ obligations under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, and other instruments that shape these obligations under the Declaration, including the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

This case was extraterritorially framed: it was brought by Inuit people living in Canada, but against the United States of America for its climate change-related human rights impacts. The petitioners argued that the acts and omissions by the United States had violated the Inuit’s rights to the benefits of culture, to property, to the preservation of health, life, physical integrity, security, and a means of subsistence, and to residence, movement, and inviolability of the home under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and other international instruments.

Outcome:
On 16 November 2006, the Commission refused to consider the petition because it considered that it had provided insufficient information. Specifically, it found that the petition did not “enable us [the Commission] to determine whether the alleged facts would tend to characterize a violation of rights protected by the American Declaration”.

The Commission held a hearing in 2007 concerning the case, however it did not revisit its decision not to examine the complaints made.

Forum:
Inter-American Commission of Human Rights

Date filed:
7 December 2005

Suggested citation:
IACHR, Sheila Watt-Cloutier et al. v. USA, petition rejected on 7 December 2005

Full text of the petition:
The text of the petition is available at climatecasechart.com. Click here to access it.

The video of the 2007 hearing is available here.

Further information:
For more on this petition, see:

Agnieszka Szpak, ‘Arctic Athabaskan Council’s petition to the Inter-American Commission on human rights and climate change—business as usual or a breakthrough?’ 162 Climatic Change (2020) 1575–1593.