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The Privatisation of Climate Change Litigation: Current Developments in Conflict of Laws

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Abstract

The purpose of this contribution is to analyse climate change litigation in an innovative way, considering it as an example of “privatisation” of international law, and unravelling the “ecological” side of conflict-of-laws climate change litigation. The paper will first explain the concept of privatisation of law as applied to international law and what it means in the context of climate change litigation, before moving to a landmark case, whose appeal is still pending in front of a domestic court in Europe: Milieudefensie et al. v. Royal Dutch Shell plc. The focus of the analysis of the cases will be limited to the use of the conflict-of-laws mechanism present in the Rome II Regulation, namely Article 7. The paper critically assesses the principle of ubiquity included in this provision, by looking at the concept of “event giving rise to the damage” as applied in CO2 reduction claims in the existing legal scholarship and using an underexplored ecofeminist perspective. Inspired by the work “A relational feminist approach to conflict of laws” by Roxana Banu (2017), the paper argues for a relational understanding of the concept of “event” and goes further to consider in an ecofeminist perspective the environment as composed of human, non-human beings and natural objects, and of their relations with each other. The article is meant to be a starting point for further research, which for the first time applies ecofeminist theories to private international law.

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Notes

  1. This contribution is part of the project “Gendering International Legal Responses to Climate Emergencies” (GenREm) 2023–2025 — Bando PRIN 2022, 2022XYHPTC, financed by the EU — NextGenerationEU.

  2. Rechtbank Den Haag, Klimaatzaak tegen Royal Dutch Shell, 26 May 2021, C/09/571932 / HA ZA 19–379 (English version). Available at http://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/milieudefensie-et-al-v-royal-dutch-shell-plc/

  3. Regulation (EC) No 864/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 July 2007 on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations (Rome II), OJ L 199, 31.7.2007, pp. 40–49.

  4. See, in that respect, ex multis, Kinsch (2005) and Salerno (2014).

  5. See in this journal, De Vido (2021).

  6. One could have used Marxism, for example, which works on the relationship between the base and the “superstructure,” on concepts of ideology and hegemony, but not on the exploitation of nature by (a part of) humanity. “Marxist approaches are committed to grounding the law in its wider material context: understanding the ways in which political-economic relationships—and their attendant conflicts—shape and are manifested within (international) law”: cfr. Knox (2021). One could have used radical naturalism, which is also underdeveloped in international law (see an application of Spinoza’s thought in international environmental law in Dahlbeck De Lucia 2018).

  7. See the global administrative law, see Cassese et al. (2012)

  8. Stephan also refers to customary international law, illustrating “the emergence of private voices in the upstream formation of customary international law”, 1606.

  9. See also Pakamanis (2016), who stressed how the national regimes of European Union Member States regarding collective redress are diverse. These considerations implies the need for a uniform collective redress system across the European Union.

  10. In the EU, the European Commission investigated the possibility of suing tobacco firms to recover health costs. See GHK (2012) and also Jarman (2018), stating that litigation is also “a public health tool”.

  11. Muir Watt (2011) contends that the law can regulate the cross-border exercise of private power by a variety of market actors. She is convinced that the time has come to unravel how private international law may impact upon the balance of informal power in the global economy.

  12. Directive 2004/35/CE of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage, in OJ L 143, 30.4.2004, 56–75. The Directive adopts an administrative or public law approach to liability and has been considered disappointing because it did not take the opportunity to address the issue of civil liability (Munari and Schiano di Pepe 2006, 188).

  13. On climate change litigation, see, ex multis, Tabau (2010); Montini (2020); Simlinger and Mayer (2019); Kahl and Weller (2021); and, with regard to the underexplored issue of climate litigation in the Global South, Peel and Lin (2019).

  14. Table of cases in http://climatecasechart.com/. This article will not discuss climate change cases filed against governments and related to their policies on mitigation and adaptation measures.

  15. Stephan warns against an absolute faith in the mechanism, considering that private litigants can achieve results that enrich them but at the expense of the general welfare (2011, 1617).

  16. This contribution highlights the “private” nature — in terms of applicants — of cases that are filed against States, because it stresses the importance of individuals as main actors in climate change litigations. See, however contra, Simlinger and Mayer 2019, 181, looking at the actions of the respondent in order to identify the public or private nature of the litigation: “Public law litigation puts the action or inaction of national authorities under scrutiny”.

  17. See, for example, the Huaraz case, on which Frank et al. (2019): http://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/lliuya-v-rwe-ag/

  18. See below.

  19. Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (recast), in OJ L 351, 20.12.2012, p. 1–32.

  20. On the reform regarding the forum necessitatis in the EU, see Franzina 2009 and Marongiu Bonaiuti (2023) (on the proposal for a reform of Brussels I bis).

  21. On the right of aliens not to be subject to so-called excessive civil jurisdiction, see Focarelli (1997).

  22. On the Rome II Regulation, see, ex multis, Brière (2008); Corneloup and Joubert (2008); Ahern and Bichy (2009); Marongiu Bonaiuti (2013); Lein et al. (2021); Mosconi and Campiglio (2022), 475 ss. The Regulation is interestingly analysed from a US perspective, by Symeonides (2008 and 2023).

  23. On the need to extend this exception to all torts, not only the environmental ones, see Symeonides (2023). On Article 7, see, inter alia, Kadner Graziano (2008), Bogdan (2009a), Bogdan (2009b), Guinchard and Lamont-Black (2009).

  24. See, on procedural matters, Mayer (2022), 409.

  25. And the legal interpretation of the concept in Cusato (2021), De Vido (2023a), Rogers (2023).

  26. On the temporality of international law see McNeilly and Warwick (2022). Persistent poisoning commonly becomes a matter of concern both at the international and domestic level when it “explodes” as a fact, causing disturbing and irreparable damages to human beings. The so-called Minamata case (Minamata City is an industrial city located at the southern tip of Japanese Archipelago in Kyushu) is an example. Minamata disease is a methylmercury poisoning contacted by people who ingested fishes and shellfishes contaminated with methylmercury discharged in wastewater from a chemical plant. At the beginning, in the 1950s, cats and sea birds eating fish were affected, causing them blindness and eventually death, however “in spite of these abnormalities in the environment, neither the company nor the administration paid attention to these changes” (Harada 1994). When the disease affected humans, there had been attempts to identify what was thought to be an epidemic. A study group of the university of Kumamoto found in 1959 the etiology of the illness, which was however officially recognised by the government in 1968 only. As stated by the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes, in a report of 2022: “Women and girls aged 14–45 years are particularly vulnerable to the neurotoxic impact of mercury. Particular risks involve the impact on unborn children. In utero exposure to mercury at very low levels can result in significant IQ deficits and developmental disorders. If mothers have highly elevated mercury levels, their children can be born with deformities, severe cognitive impairment, and symptoms reported in Minamata disease such as paraesthesia, ataxia, dysarthria, tremors, and constriction of visual fields, or ‘tunnel vision’. These symptoms can be progressive and sometimes fatal. Offspring of survivors of Minamata disease have intellectual disabilities, limb deformities, chorea, seizures and microcephaly”. Cfr. Human Rights Committee, Mercury, small-scale gold mining and human rights, A/HRC/51/35, 8 July 2022.

  27. In the USA, for example, conflict-of-laws issues have emerged as relationship between state law and federal law, with cases filed by municipalities and other public entities.

  28. This is based on the jurisprudence related to defamation cases.

  29. For an account of slow violence in public international law, see De Vido (2023a) and De Vido (2023b).

  30. Vienna Convention on the law of treaties of 1969, Treaty Series, vol. 1155, p. 331, Articles 51 and 52.

  31. Montego Bay Convention on the law of the sea, Treaty Series, vol. 1833, Article 101.

  32. We used the expression climate violence as associated to slow violence in De Vido (2023b). See also Rogers 2023. 

  33. See in that sense, for example, City of New York v BP plc, 18–2188, http://climatecasechart.com/case/city-new-york-v-bp-plc/; and Rhode Island v Shell Oil Products Co, PC-2018–4716, http://climatecasechart.com/case/rhode-island-v-chevron-corp/

  34. See, for example, some “exceptions” to the general trend that ignores the potential of a feminist perspective in private international law: Isailovic (2014), Knop and Riles (2017), and Keyes (2019).

  35. We mentioned already Marxism above, but in general we can refer to critical international legal studies. As it was explained (Beckett 2022), “although most writings on public international law (PIL) possess an esprit critique, what distinguishes critical international legal theory (CILT) is a sense that the failings in the project are not marginal or exceptional, but endemic, consistent, and structural. Known as CLS (critical legal studies), NAIL (new approaches to international law), Newstream, or simply “the crits”, this school of thought uses a broad array of techniques to address separate, but interrelated, failings perceived in the international legal project: gender biases; racialized exclusions and differentiations; class, poverty, and exploitation; cultural imperialisms; and hidden violence”.

  36. The fresh feminist analysis of surrogacy arrangements puts women and the children at the centre and does not offer a one-size-fits-all solution that defines the surrogate mother’s autonomy either through choice or consent.

  37. On the climate crisis as structural injustice from a Republican and Constitutional perspective, see Herlin-Karnell (2023a, b).

  38. Inter-American Cour of Human Rights, Advisory opinion OC-23/17 of 15 November 2017, requested by the Republic of Colombia, The Environment and Human Rights, para. 62.

  39. On ecofeminism and law see Morrow (2022) and De Vido (2023b).

  40. This reasoning would avoid cases such as Smith v. Fonterra Co-Operative Group Limited, 2020, http://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/smith-v-fonterra-co-operative-group-limited/ (see also Kraybill 2022), where a climate change spokesperson for the Iwi Chairs’ Forum, a Māori development platform, filed a case against seven New Zealand companies in the agriculture and energy sectors on the grounds of “public nuisance, negligence and breach of a duty to cease contributing to climate change”. The case was dismissed, the court stating that “tort law was not the appropriate vehicle for dealing with climate change” and that “every person in New Zealand — indeed, in the world — is (to varying degrees) both responsible for causing the relevant harm, and the victim of that harm”. This is the approach that we tried to challenge by using an ecofeminist method.

  41. The Queen on the application of ClientEarth v Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Case No: CO/4498/2019 High Court of Justice Queen’s Bench Division Planning Court 22 May 2020 [2020] EWHC 1303 (Admin) 2020 WL 02630763, upheld in front of the Court of Appeal on 21 January 2021. See also another recent case that invoked Milieudefensie. It was not successful for the applicants. High Court Queen’s Bench Division, UK, 2 March 2020 [2020] EWCH 459 (TCC) on which see Chalas and Muir Watt (2020). Also, on 9 February 2023 ClientEarth brought a case against Shell PLC board of directors, which was dismissed on 12 May 2023.

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The article is part of the project “Gendering international legal responses to climate emergencies”, Bando PRIN 2022, 2022XYHPTC, financed by the EU — NextGenerationEU).

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    Sara De Vido

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De Vido, S. The Privatisation of Climate Change Litigation: Current Developments in Conflict of Laws. Jus Cogens 6, 65–88 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42439-023-00084-x

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