Climate Interventions in Global Administrative Structures: Openings for Justice in International Economic Law

Introduction The growing relevance of global administrative structures within transnational law is not an immediate space in which one would seek climate justice. The constraints of these structures have, in the past, prevented states from being able to achieve environmentally motivated regulatory changes. There are significant examples of corporate actors using investment treaties to protect their interests in the face of states’ environmentally focused law-making. However, there is a growing awareness of the environment in both treaty language and arbitral decisions in international investment law. An opening may be emerging for climate justice to extend into these global regulatory frameworks and even be elevated by the systems that had once constrained it. This chapter attempts to identify these openings. Climate action, in its limited (albeit growing) possibilities within existing legal frameworks, is typically manifested by private actors bringing claims based on global, regional, or local climate concerns to courts. Despite the decidedly global nature of the issue, the litigation options are more common at the local and regional levels because of the laws available and jurisdictional limitations. Climate justice is often realized in domestic courts, applying local laws but often framed around broader international commitments. Many of these claims brought in the past years involve transnational litigants or issues, attempting to expose states’ or companies’ failures to implement environmentally sound policies (see infra chapter 12, Julia Stefanello Pires, ‘Leading Climate Cases Against Corporate Actors: Understanding Business Accountability for Human Rights Impacts Related to Climate Change’; for example, Milieudefensie et al. v Royal Dutch Shell plc., C/09/571932 / HA ZA 19-379, 26 May 2021; Urgenda Foundation v State of the Netherlands , HA ZA C/09/00456689, 13 January 2020).