Suing for a Cooler Planet: A 101 on Climate Rights in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America
This blog is a part of our 2025-2026 Climate and Cultural Heritage Series made possible by the Fletcher Center for International Environment and Resource Policy and the Fletcher Office for Inclusive Excellence.
By Valentina Morales
“Can I bring a claim against my government for climate inaction?”
As of June 2025, over 400 climate change litigation cases had been filed in over 80 jurisdictions, including national and international courts. The law has never been more accessible to the citizens of Latin America, Europe or the U.S. to challenge the environmental status quo and demand higher environmental and human rights protection.
Climate Litigation in the United States and Latin America
Starting with the American continent, the use of the constitutional right to a healthy environment, as present in 20 Latin American constitutions and 6 U.S. states, represents the first step towards holding companies and states accountable for climate degradation. In Latin America, Colombia’s Future Generations v. Ministry of the Environment judgment of 2018 is a reflection of youth’s power to demand further forest protection and subsequently led the Colombian government to implement a plan to halt deforestation and provide the Colombian Amazon legal personhood. In the U.S., the 2023 case of Held v. Montana affirms that the right to a healthy environment includes protecting the youth against the fossil fuel industry. Both decisions have the potential to be replicated, with their own specificities, across 26 different jurisdictions across the American continent.
Time is particularly of the essence in Latin America as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights delivered a revolutionary Advisory Opinion on July 3rd, 2025, with the potential to change climate litigation cases across the 20 country members of the Organization of American States (OAS). In the Opinion, the Court affirms that it is States’ responsibility to fight against climate change, to protect vulnerable communities, and to make polluters pay. This Opinion aims to hold states accountable for everything from environmental degradation to climate change mitigation and adaptation to subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. While advisory opinions of the Court are not binding, they carry significant interpretative weight, as they can be employed to assess the compatibility of the current and future state of the law with the American Convention on Human Rights. If future cases are brought before OAS countries, this opinion may then serve as a basis to ask for more climate action.
Climate litigation momentum across Europe
Across the Atlantic, Europeans are benefitting from the momentum created by the European Court of Human Rights’ 2024 “KlimaSeniorinnen” case, responding to the demands of senior women to provide a healthy environment for next generations. With this ruling, a European state’s inconsistency with the objectives of the Paris Agreement can amount to a breach of the right to private and family life, as established in Article 8 of the European Convention. The case is also revolutionary in terms of standing, determining individual admissibility of a claim before the Court, as it unprecedently highlights the role of associations in representing a “common concern of humankind” requiring “intergenerational burden-sharing” like climate change. In the Netherlands, the 2020 “Urgenda Foundation v. State of Netherlands” case is also symbolic of the trend of suing a state for a lack of climate ambition. The ruling resulted then in the court ordering the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by the end of 2020 compared to 1990 levels. Let us also not forget about the inspiration behind Urgenda, that is the mythical case from the French Administrative Court, “L’affaire du Siècle”. In 2021, following the petition of four NGOs, the French State was condemned for climate inaction and considered responsible for “ecological damage”, thus recognizing not only the rights of individuals, but also of nature. These cases are nowadays being integrated into law to also allow individuals to hold companies accountable for their human rights violations or environmental degradation, through notably the French Duty of Vigilance Law, or the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.
Conclusions: the time for climate justice
Across all generations, the aspiration to live in a healthy environment is a common concern. If climate change litigation has proven one thing, it is that State inaction is illegal. Several other objectives are also being achieved, including limiting States’ ability to finance non-durable means of energy.
Certainly, constitutionally granted rights are the easiest to invoke in front of a court. Not only are they “trendy” in climate litigation, but they are also usually present in states that tend to be more environmentally aware in the first place. However, the enshrinement of such a right in a constitution has proven its significance particularly when administrations change. As such, in Argentina, Article 41 of the Constitution can be used to prevent the selling of federal lands to foreign investors in the forage and oil extraction fields. The role of international courts cannot be forgotten, as they are allowing to democratize access to justice by either interpreting what States should aspire to in terms of climate change mitigation, or citizen’s ability to bring a claim. In full transparency, it is true that most climate cases fail in court, mostly on admissibility or procedural grounds. However, even when there is a not a legal victory, these claims shape the momentum to achieve greater climate ambition and resonate across the world.