On 23 July 2025 the International Court of Justice delivered the Court’s Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change.

This is a case of massive international importance which we will still be unpacking in the months and years to come. Our initial comments on the judgement consider these questions

Who brought the case? What were the questions at issue? How was it argued and who participated? What has the Court decided? What effect will the judgement have? Afterword about Vanuatu and Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change.

A climate case of potentially worldwide importance was in court in Hamm in Germany on 17 March 2025, inching its way towards a ruling. A Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya vs German power utility RWE. Read about why it matters in this update.

The High Court has upheld a challenge to the planning permission of the Cumbrian Coal mine, its mining licenses have been refused, and the last coal plant in the UK has closed. Does September mark the end of coal in the UK?

On 9 April 2024 the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg delivered a landmark judgement in an important climate case where 2,000 Swiss women, mainly in their 70s, brought a claim that Switzerland’s climate policies violated their rights to life and health under the European Convention on Human Rights.

On 21 March 2024 the Chief Justice of India, Dr Dhanajaya Y Chandrachud and India’s Supreme Court handed down a truly historic judgement in a climate case, M.K. Ranjitsinh & Others v Union of India (2024 INSC 280).

The UK has announced it will leave the controversial Energy Charter Treaty. We explain what it is and why it matters.

In this blog we pick out three decarbonisation trends, one good, one bad, one interesting, from researcher Nat Bullard’s annual presentation.

As COP28 wrapped up in Dubai, and 2024 begins, we take a look at the year ahead. What will 2024 bring, and what should we focus on to help fight climate change?

In this very significant case, which has now gone to trial, and is being closely followed especially in U.S. legal circles, 16 young people from the U.S. State of Montana are bringing a legal challenge against their State government, saying that it is failing to deliver the promise in the State’s constitution for a right to a clean and healthy environment. It is one of the first real tests in a court of law of the constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment and will test the extent measurable impacts of climate change can be legally attributed to individual states.

On 29 March 2023 the United Nations General Assembly voted by acclamation to support the motion brought by the Republic of Vanuatu and by Pacific Island law students, with the support of more than 100 countries. This sought a referral to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion of two questions seeking clarification of states’ responsibilities under international law to address climate change effectively.

In a judgement published by the High Court on the 18th July 2022, Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth, the Good Law Project and individual litigant Joanna Wheatley, succeeded in winning their legal challenge that stated the UK government’s Net Zero Strategy did not meet the requirements of the Climate Change Act 2008.

On 28 July 2022, by 161 votes to 0, with 8 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution (UNGA 76/300) recognising the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment as a human right.

On 30 June 2022, the conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court drastically curtailed the ability and powers of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency ‘E.P.A.’ to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions of power plants under the Clean Air Act. In this blog we analyse the ruling, its impact and what it may mean for attempts to fight climate change.

On 21 March 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.) proposed rule changes which would require registered financial firms to make climate-related disclosures in their registration statements and periodic reports.

In this blog we take a look at the climate case: Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Other States. Where 6 young Portuguese claimants filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights against 33 countries.

ClientEarth has announced that it has launched a legal challenge against the Board and individual directors of Shell, with potential important implications for future legal interpretation of directors’ “fiduciary duties” when it comes to the climate.

One of several highlights for us at COP26 was being able to share screenings of the short film ‘USING THE LAW TO FIX CLIMATE CHANGE’, in which four young filmmakers interview four youth climate activists.

COP26andBeyond, in partnership with IARI, will be hosting 3 events at the #All4Climate Italy 2021 summit. Find out more and sign up here.

In this guest blog, Giulia Paniccia from Istituto Analisi Relazioni Internationali ‘IARI’ considers the different levels of environmental laws and their implementation in Italy, and draws some conclusions of wider application to the effective enforcement of laws generally

Recent legal rulings in both France and Germany have held that the governments of both countries are not doing enough to fight climate change. They have both led to immediate political responses and show how future litigation might be successful elsewhere.