Book Launch: Climate Change on Trial
Leveraging data from the CLX Case Database, CLX Director César Rodríguez-Garavito Releases a New Book on Rights-Based Climate Litigation.
Based on CLX’s original case database as well as interviews with leading actors and participant observation in the field, “Climate Change on Trial: Mobilizing Human Rights Litigation to Accelerate Climate Action” tells the twenty-year rise and global diffusion of human rights-based climate change litigation. It combines insights from global governance, international law, climate policy, human rights, and legal mobilization theory in order to offer a socio-legal account of the actors, strategies, and norms that have emerged at the intersection of human rights and climate governance.
“The story of rights-based climate litigation vividly displays the potential of human rights concepts and strategies in dealing with the existential challenges of the Anthropocene, from climate change to biodiversity loss to toxic pollution.”
By proposing a broad understanding of the impacts of legal mobilization that includes direct and indirect, material and symbolic effects, this essential read documents the contributions and shortcomings of human rights litigation in addressing the climate emergency. The title is open-access and published by Cambridge University Press. Open-access Spanish and Portuguese translations, along with a series of related educational videos, will be made available at the end of July.
On Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025, the Climate Law Accelerator hosted an expert panel to celebrate the book’s launch and discuss how human rights law is evolving to meet the climate crisis. The panel, moderated by Ashley Otilia Nemeth (Director of Programs, CLX), included César Rodriguez-Garavito (Professor of Law, NYU School of Law), Elisa Morgera (UN Special Rapporteur, Human Rights & Climate Change), and Lisa Vanhala (Professor, University College London). Check out the official press release here.
