Climate Change Liability

As frustration mounts in some quarters at the perceived inadequacy or speed of international action on climate change, and as the likelihood of significant impacts grows, the focus is increasingly turning to liability for climate change damage. Actual or potential climate change liability implicates a growing range of actors, including governments, industry, businesses, non-governmental organisations, individuals and legal practitioners. Climate Change Liability provides an objective, rigorous and accessible overview of the existing law and the direction it might take in seventeen developed and developing countries and the European Union. In some jurisdictions, the applicable law is less developed and less the subject of current debate. In others, actions for various kinds of climate change liability have already been brought, including high profile cases such as Massachusetts v. EPA in the United States. Each chapter explores the potential for and barriers to climate change liability in private and public law.

Richard Lord is a London-based commercial litigator with over twenty-five years' experience, particularly of international disputes in the Commercial Court and in arbitration, and with a particular interest in private law aspects of climate change. Silke Goldberg is a Paris-based senior associate in Herbert Smith's global energy practice and a researcher in energy law at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands. Lavan Ya Rajamani is a professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, where she writes, teaches and advises on international environmental law, in particular international climate change law and policy. Jutta Brunnee is Professor of Law and Metcalf Chair in Environmental Law at the University of Toronto. Cover image: a boy stands on the dead stump of a palm tree in the Sundarban Islands, Bay of Bengal, where rising sea levels pose a threat to homes and livelihoods. Reproduced courtesy of Robin Hammond / Panos.