Revisiting limits to legal mobilization for global climate justice
Complexity, territoriality, and responsibility
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1062Keywords:
Legal mobilization, climate justice, international law, environment, powerAbstract
Amidst disproportionate climate-related harms and inadequate responses, affected groups have turned to legal mobilization. This paper analyzes socio-ecological complexity and territorial limits as themes of enduring relevance in official responses to the Inuit Circumpolar Council’s and Maldives’ foundational legal claims that climate change violates human rights, considering these against the backdrop of evolving understanding of responsibility for climate-related harm in scientific, political, and public discourse. The claims demonstrated that when legal analysis integrates scientific and traditional knowledge, climate change can be seen as violating rights internationally, and identifiable actors as culpable. Respondents disagreed, citing the complexity of climate-related harm, which combines multiple human actors, environmental processes, probability, prediction, and extraterritorial impact. Unresolved gaps between these interpretations raise doubts about law’s relevance to growing global inequities of climate change and other processes that mix people, places, and things.
Downloads
Metrics
Downloads:
PDF 416
References
Abate, R.S., 2010. Public Nuisance Suits for the Climate Justice Movement: The Right Thing and the Right Time. Washington Law Review [online], 85, 197–252. Available from. http://threedegreeswarmer.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Abate-Author-Copy1.pdf [Accessed 30 May 2019].
ActionAid et al., 2010. Climate Justice Briefs #12: Human Rights and Climate Justice [online]. What Next Forum. Cancún, 10 November. Available from: http://www.whatnext.org/resources/Publications/Climate-justice-briefs_full-setA4.pdf [Accessed 10 November 2017].
Agamben, G., 1998. Homo Sacer. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.
Atapattu, S., 2015. Human Rights Approaches to Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities. London: Routledge.
Averill, M., 2010. Getting Into Court: Standing, Political Questions, and Climate Tort Claims. Review of European Community & International Environmental Law [online], 19(1), 122–126. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9388.2010.00669.x [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Baer, P., et al., 2009. Greenhouse Development Rights: A Proposal for a Fair Global Climate Treaty. Ethics, Place & Environment [online], 12(3), 267–281. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/13668790903195495 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Bell, D.A. Jr., 1980. Brown v. Board of Education and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard Law Review [online], 93(3), 518–533. Available from: http://www.kyoolee.net/Brown_vs._Board_of_Education_and_the_Interest-Convergence_Dilemma_-_Derrick_Bell.pdf [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Bergmann, L., 2013. Bound by Chains of Carbon: Ecological–Economic Geographies of Globalization. Annals of the Association of American Geographers [online], 103(6), 1348–1370. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2013.779547 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Bix, B.H., 2005. Law as an Autonomous Discipline. In: P. Cane and M. Tushnet, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies. Oxford University Press, 975–987.
Blomley, N., 1994. Law, Space, and the Geographies of Power. New York: Guilford.
Blomley, N., 2008. Simplification is complicated: property, nature, and the rivers of law. Environment and Planning A [online], 40(8), 1825–1842. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1068%2Fa40157 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Blomley, N., Delaney, D., and Ford, R., eds., 2001. The Legal Geographies Reader: Law, Power and Space. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Bodansky, D., 2010. Climate Change and Human Rights: Unpacking the Issues. Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law [online], 38, 511-524. Available from: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1131&context=gjicl [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Bond, P., 2011. Politics of Climate Justice: Paralysis Above, Movement Below. London: Verso / Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Bradbury, J., and Tompkins, C.F., 2013. New Report Connects 2012 Extreme Weather Events to Human-Caused Climate Change. World Resources Institute [online], 6 September. Blog post. Available from: http://www.wri.org/blog/2013/09/new-report-connects-2012-extreme-weather-events-human-caused-climate-change [Accessed 11 December 2017].
Braverman, I., et al., eds., 2014. The Expanding Spaces of Law: A Timely Legal Geography. Stanford University Press.
Burger, M., and Wentz, J.A., 2015. Climate Change and Human Rights [online]. Columbia University Academic Commons. Available from: https://doi.org/10.7916/D8PG1RRD [Accessed 10 November 2017].
Castree, N., 2005. Nature. Abingdon / New York: Routledge.
Chapman, M., 2010. Climate Change and the Regional Human Rights Systems. Sustainable Development Law & Policy [online], 10(2), 37-38. Available from: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1031&context=sdlp [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Cover, R., 1983. Nomos and narrative. Harvard Law Review [online], 97(4), 4-68. Available from: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/2705 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
DARA, 2012. Climate Vulnerability Monitor, 2nd edition: A Guide to the Cold Calculus of a Hot Planet [online]. Available from: http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/ [Accessed 10 November 2017].
Davenport, C., and Landler, M., 2019. Trump Administration Hardens its Attack on Climate Science. New York Times [online], 27 May. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/us/politics/trump-climate-science.html [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Davis, S.J., and Caldeira, K., 2010. Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [online], 107(12), 5687-5692. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0906974107 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Delaney, D., 2003. Law and Nature. Cambridge University Press.
Delaney, D., 2010. The Spatial, the Legal and the Pragmatics of World-Making: Nomospheric Investigations. Abingdon: Routledge.
Derman, B., 2013. Contesting Climate Justice during COP17. South African Journal on Human Rights [online], 29(1), 170-179. Available from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19962126.2013.11865070 [Accessed 3 June 2019].
Derman, B., 2014. Climate Governance, Justice, and Transnational Civil Society. Climate Policy [online], 14(1) 23-41. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2014.849492 [Accessed 3 June 2019].
Dulitzky, A., 2006. Letter to Paul Crowley. New York Times [online], 26 November. Available from: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/science/16commissionletter.pdf [Accessed 10 November 2017].
Ezzati, M., et al., eds., 2004. Comparative Quantification of Health Risks: Global and Regional Burden of Disease Attributable to Selected Major Risk Factors. Geneva: World Health Organization.
Galanter, M., 1974. Why the “Haves” Come out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change. Law & Society Review [online], 9(1), 95-160. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3053023?origin=JSTOR-pdf [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Gardiner, S., 2011. Climate Justice. In: J.S. Dryzek, R.B. Norgaard and D. Schlosberg, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society [online]. Oxford University Press, 309-322. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199566600.001.0001 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Global Humanitarian Forum, 2009. The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis [online]. Report. Available from: http://www.ghf-ge.org/human-impact-report.php [Accessed 10 November 2017].
Gloppen, S., and St. Clair, A.L., 2012. Climate Change Lawfare. Social Research: An International Quarterly, 79(4), 899-930.
Graeber, D., 2019. If Politicians Can’t Face Climate Change, Extinction Rebellion Will. New York Times [online], 1 May. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/opinion/extinction-rebellion-climate-change.html [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Henson, R., 2014. The Thinking Person’s Guide to Climate Change. Boston, MA: American Meteorological Society.
Herbert, S., 1997. Policing Space: Territoriality and the Los Angeles Police Department. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Herbert, S., Derman, B., and Grobelski, T., 2013. The Regulation of Environmental Space. Annual Review of Law and Social Science [online], 9(1), 227-47. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-102612-134034 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Humphreys, S., 2010. Human Rights and Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.
Humphreys, S., 2012. Climate Change and Human Rights: Where is the Law? Address delivered at the 2012 Rafto Prize ceremony, Bergen. (Copy on file with the author).
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014a. Climate Change 2014: Annex II: Glossary [online]. Available from: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/01/SYRAR5-Glossary_en.pdf [Accessed 3 June 2019].
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014b. Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability [online]. Available from: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/ [Accessed 8 December 2017].
Jones, R., 2009. Categories, borders and boundaries. Progress in Human Geography [online] 33(2), 174-189. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132508089828 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Klug, H., and Merry, S.E., eds. 2016. The New Legal Realism, Volume 2: Studying Law Globally. Cambridge University Press.
Knox, J.H., 2009. Linking Human Rights and Climate Change at the United Nations. Harvard Environmental Law Review, 33, 477-498.
Layzer, J.A., 2015. The Environmental Case: Translating Values into Policy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Lesnikowski, A., et al., 2016. What does the Paris Agreement mean for adaptation? Climate Policy [online], 17(7), 825-831. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2016.1248889 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Limon, M., 2009. Human Rights and Climate Change: Constructing a Case for Political Action. Harvard Environmental Law Review [online], 33, 439-476. Available from: https://www.etoconsortium.org/nc/en/main-navigation/library/documents/?tx_drblob_pi1%5BdownloadUid%5D=58 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Mace, M.J., and Verheyen, R., 2016. Loss, Damage and Responsibility after COP21: All Options Open for the Paris Agreement. Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law [online], 25(5), 197-214. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12172 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Martuzzi, M., and Tickner, J.A., eds., 2004. The precautionary principle: protecting public health, the environment and the future of our children [online]. WHO Regional Office for Europe Copenhagen. Available from: http://www.asser.nl/media/2227/cms_eel_96_1_book-precautionary-principle-protecting-public-health-the-environment.pdf [Accessed December 8 2017].
Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, 2017. Principles of Climate Justice [online]. Available from: https://www.mrfcj.org/principles-of-climate-justice/ [Accessed December 8 2017].
Mayer, B., 2016. Human rights in the Paris agreement. Climate Law [online], 6(1–2), 109-117. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1163/18786561-00601007 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
McAdam, D., 1982. Political Process and Black Insurgency, 1930-1970. University of Chicago Press.
McCann, M.W., 1994. Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization. University of Chicago Press.
McInerney-Lankford, S., Darrow, M., and Rajamani, L., 2011. Human Rights and Climate Change: A Review of the International Legal Dimensions [online]. Report. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Available from: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/903741468339577637/pdf/613080PUB0Huma158344B09780821387207.pdf [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Merry, S.E., 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. University of Chicago Press.
Mertz, E., 2011. Undervaluing Indeterminacy: Translating Social Science into Law. DePaul Law Review [online], 60, 397-412. Available from: http://via.library.depaul.edu/law-review/vol60/iss2/7 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Mertz, E., Macaulay, S., and Mitchell, T.W., eds., 2016. The New Legal Realism: Volume 1: Translating Law-and-Society for Today’s Legal Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Organization of American States, 2015. IACHR Expresses Concern regarding Effects of Climate Change on Human Rights [online]. Press release, 2 December. Available from: http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/media_center/preleases/2015/140.asp [Accessed 26 June 2017].
Osofsky, H.M., 2006. The Inuit Petition as a Bridge? Beyond Dialectics of Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights. American Indian Law Review [online], 31(2), 675-697. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511596766.014 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Patz, J.A., et al., 2005. Impact of regional climate change on human health. Nature [online], 438(7066), 310-317. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04188 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Peterson, T.C., et al., eds., 2013. Explaining extreme events of 2012 from a climate perspective. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society [online], 94(9), S1–S74. Available from: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00085.1 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Popke, J., 2009. Geography and ethics: non-representational encounters, collective responsibility and economic difference. Progress in Human Geography [online], 33(1), 81-90. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0309132508090441 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Rajamani, L., 2010. The Increasing Currency and Relevance of Rights-Based Perspectives in the International Negotiations on Climate Change. Journal of Environmental Law [online], 22(3), 391-429. Available from: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2469783 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Robbins, P., 2007. Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Robbins, P., 2011. Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Roberts, J.T., and Parks, B.C., 2009. Ecologically Unequal Exchange, Ecological Debt, and Climate Justice: The History and Implications of Three Related Ideas for a New Social Movement. International Journal of Comparative Sociology [online], 50, 385-409. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0020715209105147 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Rogelj, J., et al., 2016. Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 °C. Nature [online], 534(7609), 631–639. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18307 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Sachs, W., 2008. Climate change and human rights. Development [online], 51(3), 332-337. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1057/dev.2008.35 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Scheingold, S.A., 1974. The Politics of Rights. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Shearer, C., 2011. Kivalina: A Climate Change Story. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
Stuart, T., 2019. Sunrise Movement, the Force behind the Green New Deal, Ramps Up Plans for 2020. Rolling Stone [online], 1 May. Available from: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/sunrise-movement-green-new-deal-2020-828766/ [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Swyngedouw, E., 1999. Modernity and Hybridity: Nature, Regeneracionismo, and the Production of the Spanish Waterscape, 1890-1930. Annals of the Association of American Geographers [online], 89(3), 443-465. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/0004-5608.00157 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Turk, A.T., 1976. Law as a weapon in social conflict. Social Problems [online], 23(3), 276-291. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2307/799774 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Werksman, J., 2011. The Challenge of Legal Form at the Durban Climate Talks. World Resources Institute [online], 28 November. Blog post. Available from: http://www.wri.org/blog/2011/11/challenge-legal-form-durban-climate-talks [Accessed 11 December 2017].
WHO Task Group, 1990. Potential health effects of climatic change (WHO/PEP/90/10) [online]. Report. Geneva: World Health Organization. Available from: http://www.ciesin.org/docs/001-007/001-007.html [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Wildcat, D., 2013. Introduction: Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples of the USA. Climatic Change [online], 120, 509–515. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0849-6 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
World Health Organization, 2017. Climate change [online]. WHO. Available from: http://www.who.int/heli/risks/climate/climatechange/en/ [Accessed 11 December 2017].
Zemans, F.K., 1983. Legal mobilization: The neglected role of the law in the political system. The American Political Science Review [online], 77(3), 690–703. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2307/1957268 [Accessed 30 May 2019].
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2019 Brandon Barclay Derman
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
OSLS strictly respects intellectual property rights and it is our policy that the author retains copyright, and articles are made available under a Creative Commons licence. The Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution No-Derivatives licence is our default licence, further details available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 If this is not acceptable to you, please contact us.
The non-exclusive permission you grant to us includes the rights to disseminate the bibliographic details of the article, including the abstract supplied by you, and to authorise others, including bibliographic databases, indexing and contents alerting services, to copy and communicate these details.
For information on how to share and store your own article at each stage of production from submission to final publication, please read our Self-Archiving and Sharing policy.
The Copyright Notice showing the author and co-authors, and the Creative Commons license will be displayed on the article, and you must agree to this as part of the submission process. Please ensure that all co-authors are properly attributed and that they understand and accept these terms.
Funding data
-
National Science Foundation
Grant numbers SES-1731745;1129127