'Six Honest Serving-Men': Climate Change Litigation as Legal Mobilization and the Utility of Typologies

Abstract

As the legal character of approaches to climate change has increased in complexity, so the volume of litigation has burgeoned, at various levels and across a range of jurisdictions. The growth in complexity is witnessed in various forms, including the shift from the treaty lawmaking of diplomats and negotiators to that of the ordinary national (and sub-national) legislator and by the development in climate change mitigation financing of networks of private and public entities. Similarly, the causes of action are various, as are the pertinent regulatory regimes and motivations of those bringing claims. Scholarly explorations of this phenomenon have followed, focusing variously on single levels of courts, implications at particular levels, considerations for particular bodies of extant law, considerations for particular bodies of climate change law, the merits of such actions, as well as theoretical engagements with the case law within the context of approaches to various bodies of law. The approach of this article is more ecumenical. Its potential ‘dataset’ is the entirety of climate change caselaw rather than discrete themes within it and it attempts to discern patterns across the piece, to systematize the claims, and thereby create a typology to be deployed and developed in future analyses.

Keywords: Climate change, litigation, typologies, mobilization