Recorded: 08 August 2024
Time: 09:00 -10:00 SAST
Abstract:
A farmer suing his government for violating his constitutional rights through failing to implement the country’s declared climate policy frameworks. A coalition of environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working with local communities to oppose the authorization of a large, new coal-fired power plant. Political parties bringing suit to the highest court of the land to take issue with the non-operationalization of the government’s financial mechanism for funding climate mitigation and adaptation actions. Young people opposing large-scale deforestation which threatens their climate future and that of future generations. These are just some examples of a new phenomenon of climate cases emerging in developing countries of the so-called ‘Global South’. This body of Global South cases now numbers more than 120 cases filed, decided or pending. And it is a fast-growing field: About half of the Global South climate cases have been filed in the past five years.
Drawing from their book, “Litigating Climate Change in the Global South”, the speakers will discuss the emerging and accelerating phenomenon of climate litigation in the Global South.
Biographies:
Jolene Lin is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore and Director of the Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law. She is a world-leading expert on climate change law. Her latest book with Jacqueline Peel, Litigating Climate Change in the Global South, is the first systematic study of the “who, what, where and how” of climate litigation across the regions of Latin America, Africa and Asia. Jolene is a member of the Academic Circle supporting the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development (2024- 2026) and Vice-Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce Global Environment and Energy Commission. She is also actively involved in various climate change philanthropic initiatives to support the role of law in tackling the climate emergency.
Jacqueline Peel is a Professor at the Melbourne Law School and Director of the University of Melbourne’s multi-disciplinary climate initiative, Melbourne Climate Futures. She is a world- leading expert on international environmental and climate law and climate litigation. Jacqueline has published extensively on these topics, including her most recent work with Jolene Lin, as well as Climate Change Litigation: Regulatory Pathways to Cleaner Energy (2015, with Hari Osofsky) and the Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (2021, with Lavanya Rajamani). Jacqueline served as a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its Sixth Assessment Report and convened the first-ever course on climate change at the Hague Academy of International Law in 2022. In 2025, Professor Peel will take up a prestigious Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship for a program on international law and corporate climate accountability and will also hold the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Ambassadorial Award taking forward activities to mentor and support female early career researchers from the Global South.
