Climate Law & Liability

In the Philippines, a Landmark Finding Moves Fossil Fuel Companies’ Climate Liability into the Realm of Human Rights

While not binding, the findings of the report by the country’s Commission on Human Rights has broad implications for other cases, experts say.

By Nicholas Kusnetz

Indian Court Rules That Nature Has Legal Status on Par With Humans—and That Humans Are Required to Protect It

By Katie Surma

California Attorney General Investigates the Oil and Gas Industry’s Role in Plastic Pollution, Subpoenas Exxon

By James Bruggers

Environmentalists in Chile Are Hoping to Replace the Country’s Pinochet-Era Legal Framework With an ‘Ecological Constitution’

By Katie Surma

Republicans Seize the ‘Major Questions Doctrine’ to Block Biden’s Climate Agenda

By Marianne Lavelle

Panama Enacts a Rights of Nature Law, Guaranteeing the Natural World’s ‘Right to Exist, Persist and Regenerate’

By Katie Surma

Can Rights of Nature Laws Make a Difference? In Ecuador, They Already Are

By Katie Surma

New Mexico Could Be the Fourth State to Add a Green Amendment to Its Constitution, But Time Is Short

By Aydali Campa

In the Latest Rights of Nature Case, a Tribe Is Suing Seattle on Behalf of Salmon in the Skagit River

By Katie Surma

In San Francisco’s Most Polluted Neighborhood, the Polluters Operate Without Proper Permits, Reports Say

By Elena Shao

The Essential Advocate, Philippe Sands Makes the Case for a New International Crime Called Ecocide

By Katie Surma

The Amazon is the Planet’s Counterweight to Global Warming, a Place of Stupefying Richness Under Relentless Assault

By Georgina Gustin

A Plea to Make Widespread Environmental Damage an International Crime Takes Center Stage at The Hague

By Katie Surma

‘A Trash Heap for Our Children’: How Norilsk, in the Russian Arctic, Became One of the Most Polluted Places on Earth

By Marianne Lavelle

More Young People Don’t Want Children Because of Climate Change. Has the UN Failed to Protect Them?

By Elena Shao

To Stop Line 3 Across Minnesota, an Indigenous Tribe Is Asserting the Legal Rights of Wild Rice

By Katie Surma

Is it Time for the World Court to Weigh in on Climate Change?

By Katie Surma

Does Nature Have Rights? A Burgeoning Legal Movement Says Rivers, Forests and Wildlife Have Standing, Too

By Katie Surma

Are Bolsonaro’s Attacks on the Amazon and Indigenous Tribes International Crimes? A Third Court Plea Says They Are

By Katie Surma