ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the growing tendency amongst concerned citizens and environmental campaigners around the world to pursue climate justice through the courts. Legal cases brought against state departments for poor performance of environmental duties suggest a growing level of public frustration with their lack of commitment to climate change mitigation. They also suggest that other means of problem resolution are failing, leaving citizens to pursue legal means as a last resort. Climate change is seen as a reflection of the failures of states to fulfill basic sovereign duties, especially the duty to protect the interests of their citizens. As climate conditions continue to deteriorate and global reserves of essential resources, such as freshwater and arable lands become less plentiful, prospects for future generations exercising sovereignty in an unproblematic way become less predictable. Legal challenges exploring the ‘plural temporalities’ of environmental responsibility include the civil case brought by 44 minors in the Philippines in 1990.
