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Development finance facilities: Prospects for APAC
Sponsors and project developers across the renewables and energy transition space are currently facing a challenging macroeconomic environment.
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Global | 出版物 | 十二月 2019
On 20 December 2019, a 7-year legal process in the Netherlands concluded with the Supreme Court of the Netherlands upholding two previous decisions by lower courts, requiring the State of the Netherlands to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% compared with 1990 levels by the end of 2020.1
This case marks an historic development in international jurisprudence on climate change because it required a decision on an important question of legal process: whether a domestic court has the power to enforce compliance with international treaties against a national government.
In the landmark decision, the Supreme Court held that Dutch courts do have that power,2 and definitively upheld the 2018 Court of Appeal decision (see our previous update on this case here), which found that the state has a duty of care to protect its citizens from climate change in accordance with its obligations under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR).3
In delivering the judgment last Friday, the Supreme Court also made the following significant statements about the certainty of climate science and the need for action by all states:
Although the decision of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands is not binding on courts in other countries, the principles in this case will add significantly to the current global legal and political pressure being applied by citizens on their governments to take urgent action on climate change. The judgment will carry particular weight in the EU as it is based in part on the ECHR. That treaty is binding in 47 states.
In a statement made on the same day as the Urgenda decision, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, commented on the implications of the case as follows: “This landmark ruling provides a clear path forward for concerned individuals in Europe — and around the world — to undertake climate litigation in order to protect human rights...”.
We will provide a wider update on developments in climate change litigation in early 2020.
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Sponsors and project developers across the renewables and energy transition space are currently facing a challenging macroeconomic environment.
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