Christina Voigt, “Climate Change at the Courts: The Role of the Judiciary in Cases Related to Climate Change” in Simon Mount & Max Harris, eds, The Promise of Law: Essays marking the retirement of Dame Sian Elias as Chief Justice of New Zealand, (Wellington: LexisNexis, 2020) 125.
Recent judicial decisions and court filings across many jurisdictions globally reveal several trends with regard to the purposes of climate change litigation. In this paper, I aim to give an overview of categories of climate change related cases and the role of courts — and judges — in these contexts. Judges will most likely be faced with new, intricate and complex legal and scientific questions. This chapter aims at presenting some of those to the audience — for contemplation, reflection and preparation. The chapter will first look into the relationship between climate change and the law and courts, before identifying some major legal issues in climate change related cases, especially the legal bases of claims. Then, the chapter provides a brief assessment of climate change obligations in international law, especially the obligations of parties to the Paris Agreement and other elements of the Agreement which may have legal impact on domestic climate cases. Finally, the chapter introduces briefly the compliance mechanism of the Paris Agreement before sharing some thoughts on expectations of climate litigation.