Substantial Justice?: Transnational Torts as Climate Litigation

Transnational litigation for harms caused by major emitters, frequently brought in north-south partnerships, is a noticeable trend in Global South litigation for environmental harm. This trend will undoubtedly be a feature of domestic climate litigation, in that it mobilises litigation capacity in the Global North, directly targets emitters in their home jurisdiction, and stands to compensate claimants most deserving of climate reparations in the Global South. In this context, this paper does three things. First it examines recent caselaw, questioning whether recent developments in transnational tort cases have opened a route to transnational climate litigation. Second, it examines and reframes existing environmental harm cases, arguing that these are characteristic of Global South climate litigation, and should be analysed as such. Third, it examines the benefits and pitfalls of this reframing, highlighting the distinction between the analysis and the strategy of transnational climate cases as climate litigation.