Did you know that the youth is tackling climate change by taking countries and companies to court?
We tend to regard to children as the future but they are the present, particularly in climate change politics. Youth-led lawsuits have become a global phenomenon in the fight for environmental protection as a human right. If you want to learn more about three of such cases Juliana v. U.S., Dejusticia, and Sacchi v. Argentina read ahead!
Juliana v. U.S.
One of the most renown climate litigation case rulings occurred in 2015. The case Juliana v. U.S. involved a group of children and young people who filed a lawsuit against the United States government. In the petition the plaintiffs stated that “this Court should order Defendants to cease their permitting, authorizing, and subsidizing of fossil fuels and, instead, move to swiftly phase out CO2 emissions”. As the lengthy litigation process reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019, the outcome of the case was rather disappointing. The court agreed with the youth plaintiffs that the United States is an active contributor to climate change, however Judge Andrew D. concluded that “relief is beyond our constitutional power”. Despite the ruling, the young plaintiffs petition for the rehearing of the case with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and hope is still not lost to hold the government accountable for the lack of environmental regulation.
read more at: https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/juliana-v-us
Dejusticia
Even though the ruling of Juliana v. U.S. was not positive, the lawsuit has already inspired other environmental lawsuits such as Dejusticia. 25 young plaintiffs between the ages of 7 and 26 years old sued several governmental bodies within Colombia and several corporations to enforce their claimed rights to a “healthy environment, life, health, food, and water.” Despite the lower court ruling against the young plaintiffs in 2018, the youth filed an appeal and in April 2019, and the Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision, ruling in plaintiffs’ favor. The court upheld the youth’s right to a healthy environment and ordered the Colombian government to execute an action plan to address deforestation in the Amazon.
read more at: https://www.dejusticia.org/en/climate-change-colombia-lawsuit/
Sacchi et al. v. Argentina et al
The scale of youth litigation for environmental rights is best captured in the 2019 case Sacchi et al. v. Argentina et al. The case involved 16 children from 12 countries, ages ranging eight to eighteen bringing forward an environmental case under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The young plaintiffs filed an official petition against five countries at the same time, and this had not been done in environmental litigation before. The claims of the litigation indicate that the defendants knowingly perpetuated the climate crisis, breaching human rights and the petitioner’s right to life. The petition under the UNCRC is yet to be accepted but its magnitude is promising as it at least helps draw the attention of the defendants to the importance of climate change policies.
read more at: https://www.uclalawreview.org/sacchi-v-argentina-fighting-for-indigenous-childrens-climate-rights/
Read more about environmental lawsuits lead by the youth here: