Guest Speaker: Dr Sam Varvastian, Cardiff University

Title: 'Human Rights Approaches to Planetary Crises: From Climate Change to Plastic Pollution'

Abstract: We live in an age of planetary crises such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and plastic pollution, which take a huge toll on communities all around the world, endangering their fundamental interests. But can the lack of government action on these crises – or action that worsens them – amount to violations of human rights? Many courts are grappling with this question, as rights-based litigation becomes increasingly common.

By focusing on climate change and plastic pollution as case studies, this book examines the viability of rights claims when confronting planetary crises in courts. From early attempts to pursue rights claims in response to planetary crises in the first decade of the 2000s to high-profile court wins in such cases in the 2010s and the spread of such cases across dozens of jurisdictions by the 2020s, rights claims in climate change and plastic pollution litigation have become a truly global phenomenon.

Through a systematic and in-depth analysis of such litigation in more than 30 jurisdictions over the last 20 years, this book assesses the value of rights in confronting and overcoming planetary crises and the factors that determine the viability of such claims. The book shows that although not all litigation forums are equally favourable to such claims, human rights can indeed be successfully invoked in different types of legal action.