2023: The Year in Review
2024 promises to be an exciting, challenging and pioneering year: our network is now leading five new and precedent-setting cases for nature. These lawsuits – which will be brought before the courts in five countries across three continents – have the potential to drive a paradigm shift in legal responses to environmental harm, holding offenders accountable for their actions and delivering real, tangible remedies on the ground.
Maribel Rodriguez describes the importance of a Green Wave of strategic environmental litigation
These cases are the culmination of several years of work, but most importantly herald the start of a new chapter in strategic environmental litigation, one which we hope will pave the way for a green wave of legal action across the globe to demand justice for nature.
We’ll be sharing updates on these cases when we can in our newsletter and on LinkedIn and X, along with news of other new cases as they develop.
As we enter this next crucial stage, we’d like to take the opportunity to reflect on the work that has brought us to this point, as we continue to build on a year of growth in pursuit of our mission: to use law to defend biodiversity.
2023 - The Year in Review
When we launched Conservation Litigation, we felt sure that we were ‘on to something’. We knew that current responses to environmental harm simply weren’t cutting it - nature continued to be harmed, and yet all too often, the offenders either got away with no consequences or, if they were caught, given insignificant monetary fines that did little (or nothing) to restore, repair or even mitigate the damage they had caused.
We felt that the law should - and most importantly could - do more for nature.
Over the year we have expanded our community of practice to an increasingly broad, diverse and international network of NGOs, lawyers, legal and environmental scholars and researchers, and potential plaintiffs.
We have conducted targeted legal analyses in countries across the world, identifying the existing legal possibilities for environmental liability litigation in specific jurisdictions, and have been actively collaborating with experienced local environmental lawyers in each country to grow our network and support the development of cases.
We held the inaugural workshop of lawyers and plaintiffs from around the world to explore how the legal pathways highlighted in our analyses can be brought to life. We are now launching and supporting strategic cases for biodiversity in courts around the world.
We led and promoted judicial training, contributing to the pioneering UNDP-IUCN Intermediary Course on Environment and Climate Law for Asia-Pacific Judges.
We hosted a collaborative workshop with the Indonesian Supreme Court, members of the UK judiciary, and guest speakers from universities and legal institutions around the world, to explore the opportunities and challenges of recent developments to environmental liabilities in Indonesia.
Through these activities and more, we have discovered that we were right - the law can do more for nature.
In 2024 we will build on the progress we have made. We will publish legal analyses for Brazil, India, Mexico, Philippines and Uganda, and launch the Biodiversity and Environmental Liability Scholars (BELS) Network, a forum for legal experts and scholars to exchange knowledge, ideas and opporunities, and further scholar-practitioner collaboration.
And perhaps most importantly, we will continue to support plaintiffs as they develop environmental litigation cases in their countries - providing legal expertise and support throughout the legal process. Some of these cases are already underway, and we hope to be able to share more news on their progress soon.
If you’re interested in supporting us, want to know more about us, or want to tell us about a potential case you think could be of interest, please get in touch with us directly here.
Thanks for reading, and we’ll bring you more updates as soon as we can.
The Conservation-Litigation.org Team.
Funded by the UK Government through the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, part of the UK Biodiversity Challenge Funds
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