Litigating climate change

Oxfam India believes that politicians have chosen narrow economic interests over the global good when it comes to climate change. Now, it’s exploring new avenues for making them pay:  In 2010, on 16th November, Oxfam India and partners are going one step further – they are bringing together people from communities across 10 different Indian ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Oxfam India believes that politicians have chosen narrow economic interests over the global good when it comes to climate change. Now, it's exploring new avenues for making them pay: 

Oxfam India believes that politicians have chosen narrow economic interests over the global good when it comes to climate change. Now, it’s exploring new avenues for making them pay: 

In 2010, on 16th November, Oxfam India and partners are going one step further – they are bringing together people from communities across 10 different Indian states, along with climate and legal experts, to explore what the possibilities are for litigation both at national and international level on the impacts of climate change.

While we all recognise the central importance of a fair ambitious and binding deal that involves all countries, this is not the only course of action. And we cannot sit back and wait for politicians to act in the interests of people right across the world while those very people continue to suffer. Climate litigation provides a real possibility in terms of bringing those responsible to account – and Oxfam India and their partners are helping to lead the way for India and the world.

But in what court do you bring a lawsuit over climate change? My bet is that somehow a hapless judge in the Southern District of New York will end up with one of these cases.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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