Transnational Climate Litigation: Emergence And Limits Of A Diagonal Protection Of Fundamental Rights

There is a growing body of climate litigation cases that are strictu sensu transnational, directed against foreign corporations or foreign governments. In some cases, courts adopted an approach open to reconsider well established principles: in the Neaubauer case, the German constitutional court did not rule out the responsibility of Germany in fulfilling its positive obligations to protect fundamental rights of foreign citizens, while the Inter-American Court on Human Rights and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child opened to the possibility of diagonal human rights protection in climate litigation. In the recent Duarte case, the ECHR declared inadmissible the complaint directed by some Portuguese youths against States other from Portugal, limiting the recognition of the extraterritorial protection of fundamental rights. Climate transnational litigation shows how climate change continuously challenges old legal paradigms, fostering the need for adapting existing instruments and building new ones.