Strategic Climate Litigation in Europe
On February 25th, Dr Alberto Nicotina presented a draft paper (co-authored with Professor Christina Eckes) on Strategic Climate Litigation in Europe: a Framework to Assess its Direct and Indirect Consequences for Democracy, at Scuola Sant’Anna in Pisa. The paper is due to be published in the next few months.
Overview
The paper examines how strategic climate litigation affects the democratic process in Europe. It begins by distinguishing four conceptions of democracy (representative, participatory, deliberative, and epistemic) and shows that assessments of judicial involvement in climate governance depend on which conception is emphasised. Building on socio-legal scholarship and existing impact literature, the paper develops an analytical framework to study the consequences of climate litigation along two axes: direct and indirect effects, and material and symbolic effects. The paper also highlights the specificities of the European context, where national legal systems interact with EU law and the European Convention on Human Rights.
