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Hi friends,
It was a big month for global climate litigation!
Last month, our global partners and allies - two of whom utilized the groundbreaking youth rights-based climate litigation strategy pioneered by Our Children’s Trust - achieved court victories in three different global domestic courts: Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia. This is important news because these court decisions are building the necessary judicial precedents for the responsibility of governments to uphold and protect human rights, children’s rights, and climate justice.
Years in the Making!
Our Children’s Trust has spent many years collaborating and consulting with fellow attorneys around the globe on these and similar cases and are delighted today to celebrate their victories. Congratulations to our European and Australian partner attorneys and their courageous clients!
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Juliana youth plaintiffs in New York City (Photo by Robin Loznak)
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Continuing on the Path…
As we celebrate these important wins, we’re also continuing to advance youth-led litigation in federal and state courts in the United States as well as in other global jurisdictions like Canada, Mexico, Uganda, India and Pakistan.
Importantly, in our U.S. federal case, Juliana v. United States, later this month, we and our youth clients will have our first settlement conference with the U.S. government and a settlement judge for confidential talks to discuss if and how we might come to agreement on resolving the youths’ constitutional claims, working together to protect our young people’s rights to a safe future. Juliana is also scheduled for oral argument on June 25 before Judge Aiken and we will continue on our quest to secure another trial date (in case we don’t reach a settlement agreement) to present evidence in open court of the government’s ongoing energy system policies and practices that are known to endanger and harm our children.
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“It is difficult to characterise in a single phrase the devastation that the plausible evidence presented in this proceeding forecasts for the Children. As Australian adults know their country, Australia will be lost and the World as we know it gone as well. The physical environment will be harsher, far more extreme and devastatingly brutal when angry. As for the human experience – quality of life, opportunities to partake in nature’s treasures, the capacity to grow and prosper – all will be greatly diminished. Lives will be cut short. Trauma will be far more common and good health harder to hold and maintain. None of this will be the fault of nature itself. It will largely be inflicted by the inaction of this generation of adults, in what might fairly be described as the greatest inter-generational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the next.” - From the decision written by Justice Mordecai Bromberg in Sister Marie Brigid Arthur v Minister for the Environment (Australia)
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A Clarion Call to U.S. Courts
All three of the courts in Germany, The Netherlands, and Australia embraced the right of people to be in court on these vital legal and factual climate questions. That is access to justice. Courts in the United States should similarly open their doors and engage with these vital questions of human rights and public harm. The courts become even more politicized when they take a seat on a question of fundamental rights and science without first considering and weighing the evidence, thus letting the dominant political faction’s actions go unchecked.
It is also critical that the U.S. courts join these other democratic nations in protecting human rights and abating their contributions to the climate crisis. The U.S. is an absolutely necessary partner in global climate mitigation, if for no other reason than the U.S. is responsible for 25% of the world’s historic emissions! U.S. courts must step up alongside their counterparts around the world if we are to accomplish a science-based remedy to the global climate crisis.
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Julia Olson, Our Children's Trust Chief Legal Counsel, walks with Juliana youth plaintiffs Aji, Levi, and Hazel (Photo by Robin Loznak)
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Resilience is Key.
It is never easy being a pioneer. In our case, the waves we’ve helped to launch are landing in other nations but are taking longer to reach our own shores. The unparalleled politicization of the climate crisis in the U.S. and the vast amount of money and power invested in keeping fossil fuels as the foundation of our energy pyramid means we have to be that much more persistent in pursuit of justice. But judges are doing their jobs across the continents and those court decisions, just like Judge Aiken’s first Juliana decision in 2016, will have ripple effects around the world. With your support, we will pursue and achieve a durable solution to the climate crisis for our youth clients here in the U.S. and with our partners around the world.
Today, we congratulate the efforts of the German, Dutch and Australian courts, claimants, and counsel who made these court rulings possible, and we look forward to the day ahead when our global allies will be able to celebrate and salute the efforts of the U.S. judiciary to protect U.S. children with a lasting science-based solution to the climate crisis in a country most responsible.
Onward in solidarity,
The Team at Our Children’s Trust
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