Climate Change on Trial

Mobilizing Human Rights Litigation to Accelerate Climate Action

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This Element tells the twenty-year socio-legal story of human rights-based climate change litigation. Based on an original database of the totality of rights-based climate change (RCC) lawsuits around the world as well as interviews with leading actors and participant observation in the field, the Element explains the rise and global diffusion of RCC litigation. It combines insights from global governance, international law, climate policy, human rights, and legal mobilization theory in order to offer a socio-legal account of the actors, strategies, and norms that have emerged at the intersection of human rights and climate governance. By proposing a broad understanding of the impacts of legal mobilization that includes direct and indirect, material and symbolic effects, it documents the contributions and shortcomings of human rights litigation in addressing the climate emergency. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.