Luke Hancox – Earth Refuge Legal

Date: 17 January 2020

Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Citation(s): Juliana v. United States, 947 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2020)

Short summary

A group of young people sued the United States government for failing to prevent climate change, seeking an order requiring the government to develop a plan to phase out domestic fossil fuel emissions. The plaintiffs claimed violations of their substantive due process, equal protection, the Ninth Amendment, and the public trust doctrine. The court found that the plaintiffs established injury-in-fact and causation for Article III standing but that their claim failed for lack of redressability.

Summary by: Nicole Gasmen and Luke Hancox

Link to Original Judgement

Click here to open the case in PDF format

Weight of decision

This decision comes from the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals and is therefore binding on all courts in the Circuit and persuasive in other federal courts.

Key facts

The plaintiffs were twenty-one young citizens, an environmental organization, and a “representative of future generations.” [1165] They sued the President (later dismissed from the action), the United States, and federal agencies. The complaint accused the government of continuing to “permit, authorize, and subsidize” [1165] fossil fuel use, despite awareness of its risks, leading to various climate-change-related injuries. The plaintiffs’ claims varied from psychological harm and impairment of recreational interests to exacerbated medical conditions and property damage.

The complaint asserted violations of the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights:

“(1) the plaintiffs’ substantive rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment; (2) the plaintiffs’ rights under the Fifth Amendment to equal protection of the law; (3) the plaintiffs’ rights under the Ninth Amendment; and (4) the public trust doctrine.” [1165]

The plaintiffs sought declaratory relief and an injunction ordering the government to implement a plan to “phase out fossil fuel emissions and draw down excess atmospheric [carbon dioxide].” [1165]

The court noted that the District Court record and this appeal recognized climate change is occurring at a rapid pace. The court stated that rising carbon emissions would wreak havoc on the Earth’s climate if left unchecked, and that the federal government long understood these risks and affirmatively contributed to their worsening.

The government largely did not contest the factual basis for the plaintiffs’ claims, only that they lacked standing to pursue them.

Previous instances

The District Court denied the government’s motion to dismiss. That court stated that the plaintiffs had standing to pursue their claims that the government violated their constitutional rights, including a Fifth Amendment right to a “climate system capable of sustaining human life.” [1165] The District Court also found a separate viable “danger-creation due process claim” [1165] based on the government’s lack of regulation on third-party emissions and a public trust doctrine claim.

At summary judgment, the District Court dismissed the President as a defendant and dismissed the plaintiffs’ Equal Protection claim in part. That court also dismissed the plaintiffs’ Ninth Amendment claims. The government then sought this interlocutory appeal to resolve the standing issue and other grounds for dismissal.

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Date: 11 December 2012

Court: European Court of Human Rights

Citation(s): Chagos Islanders v. the United Kingdom, ECHR, Application no. 35622/04 (11 December 2012)

Short summary

Former inhabitants of the Chagos Islands and their descendants brought an action to contest the U.K.’s bar on resettling the islands. The European Court of Human Rights affirmed previous judgments from U.K. courts barring the plaintiffs’ petitions for resettlement, in part due to the risks of climate change to the Islands.

Summary by: Luke Hancox

Link to Original Judgement

Click here to open the case in PDF format

Weight of decision

The European Court of Human Rights is the sole body positioned to adjudge claims lodged under the European Convention on Human Rights. Its rulings are generally, though not universally, recognized as valid and enforceable by European parties to the Convention.

Key facts

Between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, the United Kingdom enacted legislation to expel or bar the return of the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands. This was done to facilitate the construction of a United States military base on the island of Diego Garcia. This action was brought by those former inhabitants and their descendants (1,786 people). The applicants brought their action under Articles 6 & 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).

The litigation of this case involves multiple cases in domestic U.K. courts over the past 50 years regarding the events surrounding the colonization and eventual expulsion of inhabitants of the Chagos Islands.

On 8 November 1965, the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) Order in Council (SI 1965/120) established a new colony, including the Chagos Islands and other islands formerly part of the Colony of Mauritius and of the Seychelles. When agreeing to give the U.S. military access to the islands, the

U.K. treated the islands as having no permanent population in order to avoid obligations under the United Nations Charter. They claimed the population was overwhelmingly migrant workers who no longer had jobs because the plantation operated on the islands had been acquired by the U.K. government to transfer to the U.S.

As a result of the above acquisition, the islands’ inhabitants were evacuated. The BIOT Commissioner passed an ordinance in 1971, making it unlawful and a criminal offense for anyone to enter or remain in the territory without a permit. The evacuation caused immeasurable damage to these communities by uprooting their lives and forcing resettlement elsewhere. The U.K. government paid 650,000 pounds sterling (GBP) to Mauritius to aid the resettlement effort.

A 1975 case brought in the High Court of London led the U.K. government to settle all claims with the islanders. The settlement resulted in monthly payments of 2,976 GBP a month to 1,344 Chagossians between 1982 and 1984. In 2000, a case challenging the 1971 Order was brought in London. The court held that the islanders had no permanent right to the land or its use but that the Order was nevertheless invalid as outside the scope of authority of the BIOT Commissioner. This led to the bar on entry to the islands by the former inhabitants being lifted. However, none of these inhabitants went to live on the islands afterward. The U.K. government also began a study to determine the viability of resettlement of the islands after this case.

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