Mobilizing European law

The literature on European legal mobilization asks why individuals, groups and companies go to court and explores the impact of litigation on policy, institutions and the balance of power among actors. Surveying the literature we find that legal mobilization efforts vary across policy areas and jurisdictions. This article introduces a three-level theoretical framework that organizes research on the causes of these variations: macro-level systemic factors that originate in Europe; meso-level factors that vary nationally; and micro-level factors that characterize the actors engaged in (or disengaged from) litigation. We argue that until we understand more about how and why different parties mobilize law, it is difficult to respond to normative questions about whether European legal mobilization is a positive or negative development for democracy and rights.This work was supported by the University College London Global Engagement Strategy Leadership Fund; the UK Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/K008153/1]

Putting the constructive ambiguity of climate change loss and damage into practice: The early work of the UNFCCC WIM ExCom

The establishment within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts (L&D) resulted from a loose consensus that emerged based on a constructively ambiguous understanding of what climate change loss and damage is and how to best address this policy problem. Different actors have understood and advocated for divergent conceptualizations of L&D: some frame it through the lens of risk and see comprehensive disaster risk management strategies, insurance schemes and post hoc humanitarian approaches as most appropriate. Others understand it through the lens of climate justice, emphasizing the harms that arise because of climate change losses and damages and advocate for compensation as an appropriate policy response. How does this ambiguity embedded within the climate regime translate into practice during the implementation stage? This research shows that ideational contestation over L&D has specific implications for institutional development, including: (i) the composition and expertise of the governing Executive Committee (ExCom); and (ii) the practices of agenda-setting and the development of the ExCom's workplan. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic data and interviews with key stakeholders, this analysis identifies some of the ways in which constructive ambiguity can become embodied and institutionalized in L&D governance. It also points to a paradox in international climate governance—that the very ambiguity that allowed for the institutional embedding of L&D is also the driver of continued contestation, facilitates the re-negotiating of issues already agreed and explains institutional delays in effectively grappling with the losses and damages that are already taking place

The ‘national turn’ in climate change loss and damage governance research: constructing the L&D policy landscape in Tuvalu

Loss and damage (L&D) is now a key area of climate policy. Yet studies of L&D governance have focused disproportionately on the international level while the national scale of analysis has been overlooked. Recent developments in the UNFCCC negotiations and a growing call for a ‘science of loss’ that can support policy-makers to address L&D suggest the need for a greater understanding of L&D governance at the national level. How do national policy-makers understand the concept of L&D? What types of policies have been developed, implemented and funded to address L&D? We study the paradigmatic case of Tuvalu to illustrate the value of turning to the national level of analysis, while recognizing that other countries might frame L&D and its relevance for the national context differently, and thus devise a diverse set of policy responses. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with national stakeholders and a systematic policy review using methods of interpretive policy analysis, we show that the concept of L&D was introduced in official documentation in 2012 and is not explicitly distinguished from adaptation. We find that managing L&D constitutes a complex governance system with competencies and responsibilities diffused across different national actors and multiple governance scales. As conceptualized by policy-makers and within policy documents, L&D is closely tied to issues related to national sovereignty, human mobility, infrastructure investment and protection of the Exclusive Economic Zone. We conclude by suggesting that there is a need for a ‘national turn’ in research on L&D governance to produce knowledge that will support policy-makers, but also argue that national level analyses will always need to be situated within a multi-scalar context

Governing people on the move in a warming world: Framing climate change migration and the UNFCCC Task Force on Displacement

Different ways of framing the nexus between climate change and migration have been advanced in academic, advocacy and policy circles. Some understand it as a state-security issue, some take a protection (or human security) approach and yet others portray migration as an adaptation or climate risk management strategy. Yet we have little insight into how these different understandings of the ‘problem’ of climate change-related migration are beginning to shape the emergence of global governance in the climate regime. Through a focus on the UNFCCC Task Force on Displacement we argue that these different framings of climate change migration shape how actors understand the appropriate role of the TFD, including the substantive scope of its mandate; its operational priorities; the nature of its outputs and where it should be situated in the institutional architecture. We show that understanding the different framings of the nexus between climate change and migration – and how these framings are contested within the UNFCCC – can help to account for institutional development in this area of climate governance

Deploying an Ethnographic Sensibility to Understand Climate Change Governance: Hanging Out, Around, In, and Back

What can an “ethnographic sensibility” contribute to research on climate change governance? With its emphasis on meaning making and understanding what may lie beneath more obvious interactions and processes, ethnographic methodologies, particularly collaborative event ethnography, are increasingly deployed to address complex questions and achieve conceptual leverage on issues related to climate governance. Drawing on literature in climate anthropology, material geography, and political ethnography, and with examples from our own fieldwork experiences, we devise a heuristic typology underpinned by an ethnographic sensibility to help guide the fieldwork phase of a research project. Building on the well-established practice of hanging out, we introduce hanging around, which attends to spatiality and matter; hanging in, which addresses issues of access and trust; and hanging back to guide the practice of reflexivity. We articulate what fieldwork with an ethnographic sensibility entails and discuss its potential and implications for climate governance research

Understanding the Politics and Governance of Climate Change Loss and Damage

This introduction to the 2023 special issue of Global Environment Politics brings questions related to politics and political processes to the forefront in the study of climate change loss and damage. The aim of avoiding the detrimental impacts of climate change has been at the heart of the international response to global climate change for more than thirty years. Yet the development of global governance responses to climate change loss and damage—those impacts that we cannot, do not or choose not to prevent or adapt to—has only over the last decade become a central theme within the discussions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Loss and damage has also become a research topic of growing importance within an array of disciplines, from international law to the interdisciplinary environmental social sciences. However, the engagement of scholars working in the fields of political science and international relations has been more limited so far. This is surprising because questions about how to best respond to loss and damage are fundamentally political, as they derive from deliberative processes, invoke value judgments, imply contestation, demand the development of policies, and result in distributional outcomes. In this introduction we describe the context and contributions of the research articles in the special issue. By drawing on a wide range of perspectives from across the social sciences, the articles render visible the multifaceted politics of climate change loss and damage and help to account for the trajectory of governance processes

Legal Action in an Emergency: Lessons from Covid-19 Grantmaking

In 2020, the Baring Foundation launched the Covid-19 Legal Action Fund in response to the increasing adverse impacts of the pandemic – and government’s responses to the pandemic – on individuals and communities experiencing discrimination and disadvantage. The fund was designed to support strategic legal action in different forms (i.e. empowering, persuading and challenging) that might better protect the rights of those at risk of further discrimination or disadvantage. This report captures learning from this funding. The aim is to develop more general insights about litigating in an emergency, using wider legal tools “at speed” and to advance thinking on how to fund organisations to successfully use the law in a fast-changing landscape

Against Persons Unknown: A Case Study on the Use of Law by Self Organised Groups

This case study sheds light on the unique experience of a group of women who used the law to remedy injustice in their local community. The group, An Untold Story – Voices, based in Hull, challenged the use of quasi-criminal enforcement powers against sex workers in a designated area of the city. The enforcement powers were widely targeted against “persons unknown” but in practice were only used against sex workers in the city. Relying on expert evidence of harm caused by the local council’s enforcement regime, they pursued a legal challenge together with The Public Law Project (“PLP”) and achieved a successful settlement

Access to environmental justice in England and Wales

This policy brief charts the slow broadening of access to environmental justice in England and Wales over the past few decades, and examines current and future prospects with reference to the Aarhus Convention and the implications of potential reforms to the 'loser pays' fees system for legal action taken by environmental NGOs and civil society organizations.</p

Environmental Legal Mobilization

The mobilization of law to address the degradation of the environment implicates a wide range of institutions, actors, and materials. This article maps developments in the study of environmental legal mobilization. It examines the different theoretical approaches that account for why and how groups mobilize the law (or do not), including explanations focusing on law; legal opportunity structures; resources; and/or ideas, identities, and knowledge. It then considers some of the methodological challenges of studying environmental legal mobilization and highlights recent efforts to overcome them and broaden the scope of the analysis. The article then identifies four trends that are shaping the mobilization of law: ( a) changing forms of environmental law and regulation; ( b) shifts in the political landscape, including repression of civil society and the undermining of the rule of law; ( c) the growing diversity of the environmental movement; and ( d) the cumulative impacts of environmental and climate degradation on the very institutions, processes, and resources available for the mobilization of law