ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the challenges and opportunities related to the inclusion of women – and, more specifically, fisherwomen communities – in transnational climate litigation from a practitioner’s point of view. It discusses the case of Asmania et al. v Holcim, focusing on the gendered impacts of climate change on (fisher)women in the South Pacific Ocean and their (non)inclusion in transnational climate litigation. To this end, the chapter presents, firstly, the background of the case. Secondly, it discusses how an intersectional approach can prove key to understanding how the differentiated impacts of climate change on women shape, and are shaped by, the complex power dynamics of existing systems of inequality and oppression. In this light, the chapter outlines the gendered impacts of climate change on the small Indonesian island of Pari and how women on Pari have collectively responded to the crisis. Thirdly, the chapter explains how listening to community demands on the island of Pari, specifically from women, exposed the importance of implementing adaptation measures. Including these demands emphasised the loss and damages angle of the case, which departs, to some extent, from the Eurocentric approach of focusing only on emissions reductions as the core and most urgent aspect of climate litigation. However, fitting the Indonesian reality into the legal framework of Swiss civil law reveals other gender-specific challenges that are partly disadvantageous to women. Finally, the chapter argues that involving women in the design and implementation of transnational litigation is a critical resource for catalysing intersectional transformative climate action.
