International Seminar on Climate Litigation as Governance Tool Videos

Dörte Fouquet is Partner at Becker Buettner Held Law Firm. She is a recognized international expert in the areas of energy, environmental and competition law with extensive practice in the EU as she heads her firm’s Brussels team since 2011. In her presentation, Ms. Fouquet provided an overview of prominent European cases, focusing on the issue of admissibility. She notably argued that if the European Court of Justice upheld its narrow concept of standing for individuals and stakeholders in the appealed People’s Climate Case, it would become a ‘dead end jurisdiction’ for climate litigation. By contrast, in Germany she noted that in the ongoing climate lawsuit brought by plaintiffs from Germany, Bangladesh and Nepal against the German Federal government, the German Constitutional Court had launched a rare wide consultation before ruling on the case. Combined with recent jurisprudence on rights-based environmental claims, she argued that it indicated an openness and the possibility of a ruling going in the same direction as the Urgenda decision.

Dörte Fouquet是Becker Buettner Held律师事务所的合伙人。她是公认的能源、环境和竞争法领域的国际专家，并自2011年起担任该事务所布鲁塞尔团队的负责人，在欧盟有广泛的实践经历。Fouquet女士在发言中分享了欧洲的气候诉讼案例，并重点关注案件的可受理性问题。她特别指出，如果欧洲法院在 "人民气候案 "的上诉中坚持其狭隘的个人和利益相关者的诉讼资格概念，那么它将成为气候诉讼的 "死胡同"。相比之下，在来自德国、孟加拉国和尼泊尔的原告对德国联邦政府正在提起的气候诉讼中，德国宪法法院在对该案进行裁决前，罕见地展开了广泛的咨询。她认为，结合最近关于基于权利的环境索赔的判例，这表明了一种开放的态度，并表明了作出与Urgenda案相同裁决的可能性。

Peter Barnett is a senior lawyer at the environmental law NGO Client Earth, leading its climate and energy work in Southeast, East and South Asia. His practice focuses on the intersection between climate change and corporate law. His presentation focused on the use of corporate law and shareholder activism to pursue pro-climate, fossil fuel divestment goals, through an analysis of the successful action brought by Client Earth against the Polish energy company Enea, as one of its shareholders, to challenge the construction of a new coal power plant. Their argument that the decision to build this plant was against the economic interests of the company due to the risk of stranded assets from climate policy was upheld by the court. In his interview, he expanded on the notions of strategic litigation, making instrumental use of laws that a priori do not concern the environment, such as corporate law, to pursue climate policy goals.

Peter Barnett是环境法非政府组织Client Earth的高级律师，主要负责该组织在东南亚、东亚和南亚的气候和能源工作。他的业务重点是气候变化和公司法之间的交叉领域。在演讲中，他重点讲述了如何利用公司法和股东行动主义来追求保护气候，使化石燃料撤资的目标，并分析了Client Earth对波兰能源公司Enea（作为其股东之一）成功诉讼组织新煤电厂建设的案例，在此案件中，Barnett律师认为由于气候政策带来的资产搁浅风险，建设该电厂的决定违背了公司的经济利益，这一观点得到了法院的支持。在采访中，他扩展了战略诉讼的概念，将公司法等先验不涉及环境的法律进行工具性利用，以实现气候政策目标。

Anna McIntosh is a staff lawyer at Ecojustice Canada, where her litigation files focus on combating climate change and fighting for the right to live in a healthy environment for all. In her presentation and interview, Ms. McIntoch spoke about her practice in defending climate arguments in both positive and negative cases. She detailed some of the innovative arguments made by plaintiffs in prominent lawsuits brought recently against the government in Canada, such as putting forward unwritten constitutional principles or legal doctrines, leveraging the territorial rights of indigenous communities, or interpreting constitutional rights as an affirmative duty for the state to protect them. She also spoke about the importance for environmental lawyers to intervene in ‘negative’ litigation brought by fossil companies and fossil-dependent provinces like Alberta against the climate policies of the federal government. While underlining the important challenges faced by these actions in court, she insisted that the series of innovations would have a profound impact on the legal system in Canada.

Anna McIntosh是加拿大Ecojustice的一名律师，她的诉讼案件主要集中在应对气候变化和为所有人争取享受健康生活环境的权利方面。McIntoch女士在演讲和采访中谈到了她在积极和消极案件中为气候论点辩护的方法。她详细介绍了在最近对加拿大政府提起的著名诉讼中，原告提出的一些创新论点，如提出不成文的宪法原则或法律学说，利用土著社区的领土权，或将宪法权利解释为国家保护这些权利的积极义务等。她还谈到环境律师介入化石公司，以及如阿尔伯塔省等依赖化石的省份，为挑战联邦政府气候政策而提出的 "消极 "诉讼的重要性。在强调这些诉讼在法庭上所面临的重要挑战时，她坚持认为，这一系列创新将对加拿大的法律制度产生深远影响。

Jinmei Liu is an environmental lawyer who has been leading the law and policy project of the Chinese Environmental NGO Friends of Nature since 2018. In her presentation, Ms Liu provided an overview of the current conditions for bringing climate-related lawsuits in China. Focusing on NGOs, she noted their critical importance since only them have brought such cases, even though, unlike public procuratorates and individuals, they can only sue private companies (not government) and have to demonstrate a damage to the public interest to prove standing. She further showed that, although rights-based litigation were not practical in the Chinese context, NGOs could rely on and develop the concept of public interest and draw on related statutes, including the air pollution law, the renewable energy law, and the circular economy law. While she highlighted practical challenges stemming from the lack of regulation of, and data on firms’ carbon emissions, she concluded that judicial capacity was building up. In her interview, she expanded on NGOs’ strategic use of litigation to develop the legal system and contribute to environmental policy making, as well as on the judicial and extrajudicial obstacles of environmental and climate litigation.

刘金梅是一名环境律师，自2018年以来，她一直在领导中国非政府环保组织 "自然之友 "的法律和政策项目。刘律师概述了目前在中国提起气候相关诉讼的条件。她重点介绍了非政府组织的情况，尽管与检察院和个人不同，非政府组织只能起诉私人公司（而非政府），且必须证明对公共利益的损害才能证明其诉讼资格，但非政府组织在环境诉讼中发挥着至关重要的作用，因为只有非政府组织曾提起过环境诉讼案件。她进一步表明，虽然以权利为基础的诉讼在中国语境下并不实用，但非政府组织可以依靠和发展公共利益的概念，并借鉴相关法规，包括《空气污染法》、《可再生能源法》和《循环经济法》。她强调，尽管面对着由于管制和企业碳排放数据确实带来的挑战，但司法能力正在建立。在访谈中，她详细介绍了非政府组织战略性地利用诉讼来发展法律制度，促进制定环境政策，以及环境和气候诉讼中的司法和司法外障碍。

Shengzhi Wang is Counsel from the Sunshine Law Firm’s Shanghai Office. His practice focuses on environmental compliance and transaction legal counseling, including for solar and wind energy project developers. In his presentation, he spoke about the rising concern about the environmental impact of renewable energy projects stemming from their rapid expansion and the increasingly comprehensive environmental protection system under which they operate in China. He highlighted ecological redlines and land planning, as well as ecological impact as major factors affecting the siting of renewable energy projects and creating risks for companies not doing due diligence preventive assessment. In his interview, Mr. Wang offered broader reflections on China’s environmental rule of law, highlighting both the strong support for its development provided by the central government, and the need for environmental agencies and courts to help clarify and enforce the norms and regulations. While agreeing with the general idea that litigation could promote climate governance, he noted that this influence would be shaped by the judicial institutions proper to each country.

王盛智是阳光律师事务所上海办事处的法律顾问。他的业务重点是环境合规和交易法律咨询，包括为太阳能和风能项目开发商提供法律服务。他在演讲中谈到，随着可再生能源项目的快速扩张，以及其在中国运营的环保体系日益完善，人们对其环境影响的关注度正在不断提高。他强调，生态红线和土地规划以及生态影响是影响可再生能源项目选址的主要因素，而这也为未尽职预防评估的企业带来了风险。在采访中，王先生对中国的环境法治提出了更广泛的思考，既强调了中央政府对环境法治发展的大力支持，也强调了环境机构和法院帮助澄清和执行规范和法规的必要性。尽管他同意诉讼可以促进气候治理，但他指出，这种影响将由每个国家的司法机构来决定。

Tianbao Qin is a National Changjiang Scholar and Luojia Distinguished Professor of Law at Wuhan University, serving as the Director of the Research Institute of Environmental Law. He previously worked as Deputy Director of the Research Center of the Supreme Court of China on Environmental-related Judicial Theory. In his remarks, Prof Qin noted the positive attitude of the Chinese judiciary towards developing the field of climate litigation, and the significance of its mention in the recent white paper of the Chinese Supreme Court in this regard. Secondly, he insisted on the need to develop both climate mitigation and adaptation types of litigation, noting the large untapped potential for adaptation litigation and especially NGO-led public interest litigation. In his interview, he further expanded on the role that litigation and judicial interpretation play in developing environmental and climate governance in China and again insisted on the avenue of adaptation litigation. However, on the trend of climate mitigation litigation brought against governments, he hinted that attacking the Chinese government may lack a basis since, as a developing country still dealing with massive pollution and poverty issues, it has already adopted very ambitious climate goals and taken drastic measures to implement them.  

秦天宝，国家长江学者，武汉大学珞珈特聘教授，现任环境法研究所所长，曾任中国最高法院环境资源司法理论研究基地副主任。秦教授在发言中指出，中国司法机关对发展气候诉讼领域的态度是积极的，在中国最高法院最近的白皮书中也提到了气候诉讼领域的意义。其次，他坚持既要发展气候减缓类诉讼，也要发展适应类诉讼，指出适应类诉讼特别是非政府组织主导的公益诉讼还有很大的潜力没有发挥出来。在采访中，他进一步阐述了诉讼和司法解释在中国环境和气候治理发展中的作用，并再次坚持适应性诉讼的途径。不过，对于针对政府提起的气候减缓诉讼的趋势，他暗示，攻击中国政府可能缺乏依据，因为作为一个仍在处理大规模污染和贫困问题的发展中国家，中国政府已经通过了非常宏伟的气候目标，并采取了严厉的措施来实施这些目标。

Iván Vargas-Roncancio is a Ph.D. candidate in Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University. His research involves an ethnographic study of indigenous practitioners, scientists, legal scholars, and ritual plants across territories, labs, and courts of justice in an effort to contribute to a larger paradigm shift surrounding the recognition of the rights of nature. In his presentation, Mr. Vargas-Roncancio explored the impacts of the rights of nature on the legal system and economic development in post-conflict Columbia. He first offered a severe picture of the way in which environmental destruction in the Columbian amazon has resulted from a combination of extractivist projects, drug trafficking and guerrilla warfare at the expense of indigenous communities. He then introduced the legal revolution brought by the recognition of rights of nature by the judiciary. While saluting these significant advances in the legal system, he also noted the absence of impact on the economic development model. He argued that the legal revolution needed to go a step further by incorporating different understandings of nature and non-human beings, especially understandings from indigenous cultures. This agenda, he argued, raises questions for legal practice, such as how nature can be represented in legal proceedings, and how different types of rights can be adjudicated. In his interview, he elaborated on the need to attune legal and economic system reforms, on the role of indigenous communities, their cosmologies, knowledge and practices of nature and law in this process, as well as on the implications that this could have for addressing climate change.

Iván Vargas-Roncancio是麦吉尔大学自然资源科学博士候选人。他的主要对土著实践者、科学家、法律专家和不同国家、体制下的法律进行研究，以努力促进围绕承认自然权利的更大范式转变。Vargas-Roncancio先生在发言中探讨了自然权利对冲突后哥伦比亚的法律制度和经济发展的影响。他首先介绍了哥伦比亚亚马逊地区环境遭破坏的严重情况，这些破坏是由采掘项目、贩毒和游击战共同造成的，损害了土著社区的利益。然后，他介绍了司法部门承认自然权利所带来的法律革命。他在赞扬法律制度的这些重大进步的同时，也指出其对经济发展模式没有产生明显影响。他认为，法律革命需要更进一步，纳入对自然和非人类的不同理解，特别是土著文化的理解。他认为，这一议程为法律实践提出了一些问题，例如如何在法律程序中体现自然，以及如何对不同类型的权利进行裁决。在访谈中，他阐述了调整法律和经济制度改革的必要性，土著社区的作用、其自然和法律的知识和实践在这一进程中的作用，以及对解决气候变化问题可能产生的影响。

Asghar Leghari is Partner at Leghari & Darguar in Pakistan. Alumni of the Duke University Law School, he has brought and given his name to the first successful climate lawsuit against a government in the global south. Mr. Leghari’s roundtable intervention focused on analyzing strategies and avenues of litigation for climate adaptation in Pakistan. He distinguished private and public litigation pathways, noticing that the private pathway faces a lot of obstacles stemming from the lack of adequate regulatory standards related to adaptation that can be applied by local courts. In the realm of public litigation, however, important developments have stemmed from the constitutional power that the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the provincial High Courts have to issue instructions to public authorities in order to enforce fundamental rights as well as to guide and review their implementation through the appointment of specialized commissions. He put forward the idea that while these commissions have played a significant role in promoting climate adaptation measures, they also risked hampering the role of administrative agencies and lower courts in developing the foundations for long-term adaptation to climate change.

Asghar Leghari是巴基斯坦Leghari & Darguar律师事务所的合伙人。作为杜克大学法学院的校友，他提出了全球南部地区第一起针对政府的成功气候诉讼案，并以他的名字命名。Leghari先生在圆桌讨论阶段重点分析了巴基斯坦气候适应诉讼的策略和途径。他对私人和公共诉讼途径进行了区分，指出私人途径面临着许多障碍，原因是缺乏可由当地法院适用的监管标准；而公共诉讼领域的发展主要源于巴基斯坦最高法院和省级高等法院拥有向公共当局发出指示的宪法权力，以便执行广泛界定的基本权利，甚至指导和审查其执行情况，特别是通过任命专门委员会。他认为，虽然这些委员会在促进气候适应措施方面发挥了重要作用，但它们也有可能妨碍行政机构和下级法院在为长期适应气候变化奠定基础方面的作用。