Revisiting limits to legal mobilization for global climate justice: Complexity, territoriality, and responsibility

• Main Author: Brandon Barclay Derman
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Spanish; Basque; French; Portuguese
• Published: Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law 2019
• Subjects: Legal mobilization; climate justice; international law; environment; power; Movilización legal; justicia climática; derecho internacional; medio ambiente; Social legislation; K7585-7595; Derecho; inuit
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/b22cdb0288284e5da4be4a2ac0fd6f0e

Amidst disproportionate climate-related harms and inadequate responses, affected groups have turned to legal mobilization. This paper analyzes socio-ecological complexity and territorial limits as themes of enduring relevance in official responses to the Inuit Circumpolar Council’s and Maldives’ foundational legal claims that climate change violates human rights, considering these against the backdrop of evolving understanding of responsibility for climate-related harm in scientific, political, and public discourse. The claims demonstrated that when legal analysis integrates scientific and traditional knowledge, climate change can be seen as violating rights internationally, and identifiable actors as culpable. Respondents disagreed, citing the complexity of climate-related harm, which combines multiple human actors, environmental processes, probability, prediction, and extraterritorial impact. Unresolved gaps between these interpretations raise doubts about law’s relevance to growing global inequities of climate change and other processes that mix people, places, and things. Este artículo analiza la complejidad socioecológica y los límites territoriales como temas de importancia permanente en las respuestas oficiales a las reclamaciones legales fundacionales del Consejo Circumpolar Inuit y de las Maldivas, que afirman que el cambio climático viola derechos humanos. Se consideran esas respuestas sobre el trasfondo de la comprensión paulatina en el discurso científico, político y público de la responsabilidad por los daños relacionados con el clima. Las demandas demostraron que, cuando el análisis jurídico integra el saber científico y el tradicional, se puede considerar el cambio climático como violador de derechos internacionales, y a los agentes identificables como culpables. Los críticos se mostraron en desacuerdo, aludiendo a la complejidad del daño relacionado con el clima. Los vacíos sin resolver entre esas interpretaciones arrojan dudas sobre la relevancia del derecho en cuanto a crecientes desigualdades ...