Oxfam launches "Climate Change Litigation Competition" while declaring that "Litigation is seldom the best way to solve a dispute"
Oxfam’s recent report, Climate Wrongs and Human Rights, advocates a human rights-based approach to climate change. The report largely focuses on the application of human rights principles, defined by Oxfam as a “fundamental moral claim each person has to life’s essentials – such as food, water, shelter, and security,” to international climate policymaking. But it also advocates changes to human rights laws and institutions to overcome what Oxfam cites as barriers to litigation against “countries and corporations that have long been producing excessive greenhouse gas emissions.”
Continue Reading...British jury in Kingsnorth case finds in favor of climate change protestors
By a majority verdict, a British jury found five protestors who shut down the Kingsnorth coal-fired power plant had a “lawful excuse” to close the plant to prevent greater damage from global warming. Greenpeace activists, protesting the contribution of coal-electric power plants to climate change, scaled a chimney and painted the word “Gordon” on the chimney before they were forced down (“Gordon” is a reference to British prime minister Gordon Brown). The protest shut down the power plant temporarily and the graffiti cost about $62,000 to remove. The jury verdict in favor of the protestors illustrates how a U.S. jury might respond to similar protests.
Continue Reading...Opening of the Northwest Passage triggering international disputes
Increased annual melting of Arctic ice is opening the waters of the Northwest Passage to navigation and other activities and may lead to sovereignty, natural resource and environmental protection disputes in an area that once was impassable. A New York Times editorial summarized the brewing areas of disagreement:
What was once solidly frozen is now, increasingly, accessible, leading to fierce disputes over territory and natural resources. Perhaps the biggest of these disputes is whom do the waters in the Northwest Passage belong to: Canada, or are they international?
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