Chapter 18 offers a critical analysis of the types of remedies sought in climate cases and examines their implications within the legal landscape. Drawing on a comprehensive analysis of climate lawsuits from around the world, the authors provide insights into the diverse range of remedies that have been sought to address the adverse impacts of climate change. They then shed light on the different considerations and approaches that courts have taken when determining appropriate remedies. In their exploration of emerging best practices, the authors highlight instances where courts have adopted innovative and transformative approaches to remedies in climate litigation. They examine creative legal mechanisms that go beyond traditional compensatory measures and explore the potential of remedies such as injunctive relief, restitution, and declaratory judgments to address the multifaceted challenges posed by climate change.

Chapter 10 on International Atmospheric Trust cases investigates the application of the public trust doctrine in climate litigation. Historically, under this doctrine courts have maintained that certain natural and cultural resources should be held in trust for the public, with the government acting as a trustee. The authors explain the practical application and interpretation of this doctrine in climate litigation, examining key cases (through 2022) across various jurisdictions, including the United States, Canada, India, Pakistan, and Uganda. The effect is to produce a Restatement of best practices in climate litigation revealing the successes and challenges encountered when invoking the public trust doctrine in climate litigation. This review of the case law reveals an emerging distinction between the U.S., which has seen the erection of procedural barriers in federal and state courts to avoid deciding cases on the merits, and international courts, who have reached the merits of several cases, ordering remedial actions. The chapter underscores the potential of this doctrine to induce more robust climate action among the political branches of government, reflecting a growing recognition among courts outside the U.S. of their own role in safeguarding the atmosphere.

Chapter 7 dissects how human rights laws have been harnessed in climate cases, scrutinising key judgments that have applied human rights frameworks to climate change and the implications of these legal strategies for both claimants and defendants. The authors’ analysis of emerging best practice reveals a growing acceptance of the notion that a State’s failure to take adequate action to address climate change constitutes a breach of human rights obligations, and this recognition is shaping legal strategies in climate litigation at the national and international levels. The authors also highlight how recent jurisprudence further suggests that corporations have important obligations to respect human rights in the face of climate change. Although jurisdictional disparities exist, the growing body of case law demonstrates the adaptability and replicability of rights-based reasoning, thereby contributing to the establishment of a consistent and coherent framework for ‘transnational’ climate law.

Chapter 11 delves into the Rights of Nature, an emerging legal paradigm that ascribes legal rights to natural entities. Drawing on concrete examples from countries such as Ecuador and Colombia, the author elucidates the transformative potential of this paradigm in the realm of climate litigation. One of the most compelling aspects of this approach is the shift it instigates in our legal and ethical relationship with the natural world. By conferring rights upon nature, it challenges the traditional conception of nature as mere property or resource, and it promotes a more holistic relationship with our environment. The author argues that this shift can play a critical role in achieving climate justice by ensuring that the rights and interests of nature itself are protected in the face of climate change. The analysis of emerging best practice reveals that, while still in its early stages, the Rights of Nature approach is starting to gain traction in climate litigation around the world.

Chapter 8 on Extraterritoriality discusses how the cross-border nature of climate impacts is addressed within climate litigation. The author scrutinises the interpretation of ‘jurisdiction’ and related procedural and substantive issues in the context of these transboundary impacts. His analysis showcases how these legal principles and procedural rules either facilitate or constrain courts and quasi-judicial bodies in grappling meaningfully with these impacts. In his exploration of key decisions, the author unravels their implications for the global governance of climate change and the challenges and opportunities they present for transboundary climate lawsuits. He distils emerging best practices that reveal how courts and quasi-judicial bodies, through judicious interpretation of legal principles, are grappling with the global dimensions of climate change. Despite the complexities inherent in integrating extraterritorial considerations into climate litigation, the chapter posits an optimistic outlook and highlights how visionary legal reasoning can tackle these complexities in a manner that is conducive to ensuring access to justice for those most affected by climate impacts.

Chapter 17 delves into one of the most challenging aspects of climate litigation: attributing climate change impacts to specific actors or actions. The author explores how courts and quasi-judicial bodies grapple with the scientific complexities of attribution. In particular, she analyses how these legal bodies assess and weigh the scientific evidence, navigate the inherent uncertainties, and determine the legal relevance of attribution findings in climate cases. Through a detailed review of key climate cases from around the world, the author uncovers a variety of approaches to the issue of attribution. These cases highlight the diverse legal strategies employed by litigants to establish the causal links necessary for liability and the evolving understanding of courts in grappling with scientific complexities. In distilling emerging best practice, the author identifies instances where courts have acknowledged the collective and cumulative nature of climate harms, accepted partial attribution as a basis for liability, and applied innovative legal doctrines to overcome attribution-related challenges.

Chapter 4 explores the intricacies of the legal principle of standing, its role in climate litigation, and how it impacts the ability of parties to bring climate change-related lawsuits to trial. The author discusses interpretations of standing across different jurisdictions, such as the United States, New Zealand, and countries in Europe, and explains how these interpretations can either impede or facilitate climate litigation. He distils emerging best practice from this analysis, providing an insightful guide for future climate lawsuits. The author then identifies emerging best practice in interpreting standing rules in a flexible manner, thus allowing a broader range of actors to bring climate-related lawsuits and enhancing access to justice.

Chapter 15 on State Responsibility provides an in-depth exploration of the circumstances under which States can be held responsible for climate change. The author starts by outlining the fundamental principles and conditions for State responsibility under international law. Her analysis bridges the gap between international and domestic law, shedding light on how each legal sphere influences the shape and contours of State responsibility in relation to climate change. Further, she enriches her analysis with insights drawn from key climate cases that have tested the limits of State responsibility. These cases reveal how courts and quasi-judicial bodies are grappling with the challenges of attributing climate harms to State actions and omissions, and the implications of holding States accountable for these harms. In distilling emerging best practice, the author identifies innovative judicial interpretations and legal strategies that have expanded the ambit of State responsibility in climate litigation.

Chapter 1 introduces The Cambridge Handbook on Climate Litigation. The editors provide an overview of the development of climate litigation and its landmark victories, including the Urgenda, Leghari, and KlimaSeniorinnen decisions. They illuminate how the Handbook will help judges, lawyers, scholars, and other actors navigate the labyrinth of legal intricacies that define the rapidly evolving climate change litigation landscape. To shed light on the methodology of the publication, the chapter details the empirical basis for the work, which involved an exhaustive cataloguing of climate litigation case law to date. This is followed by an explanation of the analytical framework that underpins each of the chapters – a framework focused on distilling ‘emerging best practice’. The latter portion of the chapter details each section of the Handbook and summarises the analyses of the contributing authors. Ultimately, the Handbook aims to inspire dialogue as well as robust and innovative legal reasoning in future climate cases.

Chapter 2 provides a primer on climate science for legal practitioners and scholars, and it offers essential scientific background to help readers understand the context of climate litigation. Based on reports of the latest (sixth) assessment cycle of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authors begin with an overview of the components of the climate system, the carbon cycle, and the greenhouse gas effect. The second section looks backwards to show the influence that humans have had on climate change to date, while the third section focuses on the current impacts of climate change. The fourth section looks forward and presents future emissions scenarios and projected warming and impacts, highlighting both fast and slow onset climate changes. The final section evaluates progress toward the goals set in the Paris Agreement and explores strategies for stabilising global temperatures.

The powerful pedagogical affordances of technologies enable new forms of learning that can serve contemporary pedagogies such as task-based language teaching (TBLT) in different educational contexts. Indeed, technology and TBLT mutually nurture one another as technology sets a natural and authentic context for the realization of the methodological principles of TBLT, and TBLT offers a rationale and pedagogical framework for the selection and use of technology. Given the unique learning potential of technology-mediated TBLT and the relative newness of the field, it is essential to advance this area to fulfill the fruitful interface between the two fields of TBLT and technology. This chapter presents how this fusion offers language learning opportunities that would otherwise be difficult to orchestrate in traditional classroom contexts. It then provides a brief review of recent work in this area, paving the way toward an outline of future research and practice directions in the implementation of technology-mediated TBLT.