CLIMATE CHANGE LITIGATION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LEGAL APPROACHES IN PAKISTAN, THE UNITED STATES, AND THE NETHERLANDS
Abstract
As the climate crisis continuing to reach new directions, the use of litigation as the purely reactive legal instrument has evolved to be a more proactive way of establishing climate governance and accountability. Climate justice around the world has become an important tool to hold States to their duty, tighten up the regulatory codes and exercise environmental rights. The success and nature of such litigation however, differs greatly regarding legal traditions, the strength of institutions and participation in society. The present paper provides a comparative analysis of climate change litigation in Pakistan, the United States, and the Netherlands, three of the jurisdictions with different legal cultures, levels of development and environmental priorities. Instead of looking into particular court cases, the paper evaluates regulatory environments, high-level legal mechanisms and philosophies that favor or obstruct climate-related litigation in both countries.
In Pakistan, the courts have built an environmental litigation within the umbrella of constitutional rights, more specifically the right to life and dignity. The court in taking the activist approach to interpretation of the right to environmental protection as an extension of basic rights, has taken the activist approach through the concept of public interest litigation. Although there is no concrete climate law and scanty institutional framework in Pakistan, courts have demonstrated readiness to participate in climate governance by way of broad interpretation of the constitution. Conversely, the United States has a diffuse and regularly discordant setting of climate litigation. Environmental enforcement has been highly politicized attributed to regulatory fragmentation, tensions between the federal and states, and dynamism in the executive priorities. Even though new legal concepts have arrived on the scene litigation of an atmosphere trust and litigation of statutory challenges, procedural obstacles have placed constraints on systemic change, standing, justiciability, and separation of powers are all procedural barriers.
The Netherlands presents an opposite picture of rights-based evidence-based climate litigation in a friendly civil law-system. NGO litigation, supported by a well-developed public trust code and the adoption of procedural rules in support of the same, has made Dutch courts core players in forcing governmental action in meeting the commitments on emission reductions. The Dutch legal environment is gestured of the more general cultural and institutional receptivity in judicial participation in climate policymaking. This comparative question provides insight into how the crucial role of legal frameworks is just a part of what makes the climate litigation effective or not; other forces, including the independence and presence of civil society, as well as the political will, have an immense impact on the effectiveness of climate litigation.
The research helps to promote the increasing literature on transnational climate legislation by depicting the roles that legal frameworks play in defining the form of climate justice. It asserts that despite being a contextual aspect, litigation can be employed as a transformative-ness tool- but only in the context of having powerful legal norms, institutional integrity, and societal legitimacy. Based on the experience of these three jurisdictions the paper suggests greater integration in climate governance, which focuses on constitutional rights, inter-institutional collaboration and increasing the role of the affected populations in the environmental-decision making.
Key Words: Climate litigation, climate justice, constitutional rights, environmental governance, public interest litigation, institutional frameworks, judicial activism
