Corporate liability for climate change - Is Milieudefensie a sign of what is to come?

Sammanfattning: Where states have failed to take the threat of global warming seriously, private individuals and environmental organizations have confronted those contributing to it. By bringing the emitters to court, litigants all over the world hope to put an end to the current trajectory towards dangerous climate change. Within the field of climate litigation, both governments and corporations are targeted. The success for claims brought against corporations has however for a long time been absent, and not until 2021 did claimants succeed in holding a corporation liable for its emissions. The Milieudefensie et al. v. Royal Dutch Shell ruling has, by environmentalists and legal scholars, been regarded as the most important ruling in the history of private climate litigation. However, the legacy of the novel Dutch case is yet to be established. This raises questions surrounding the future of climate litigation beyond the ruling. Is it perhaps an indication of what is to come, or is it an anomaly in the field of private climate litigation? In order to assess the value of the case, this thesis sets out to establish the foundations for the ruling. The thesis identifies the issues regarding legal standing, legal basis, and causality, as being obstacles that domestic law has historically created for private climate litigation, but which by now have been surmounted by claimants, and due to legal and scientific development. It also examines the possibilities for private climate litigation arising from international law, mainly the Paris Agreement and human rights-treaties. After establishing these foundations, the thesis explores the Milieudefensie ruling, highlighting the impact domestic and international law had on the court’s decisions. The thesis finds that the Milieudefensie ruling is the natural culmination of the entire progress of domestic and international law within the field of private climate litigation up to this point. Traditional objections by the defendants based on domestic law, such as legal standing and attribution, are dismissed by the Dutch court. The Paris Agreement and human rights-treaties are directly applied onto a ‘duty of care’ stemming from Dutch tort law, with the result of Royal Dutch Shell being forced to reduce its emissions as to not violate the interests of Dutch residents. The ruling exhibits the interaction between domestic and international law, and also the role earlier case law has had for the court reaching its decision. As such, Milieudefensie is not an anomaly but the logical next step for private climate litigation. However, the future legal impact of the ruling will likely be limited as the Dutch ‘duty of care’ is relatively unique to the Netherlands, and the case would therefore be hard to replicate in another jurisdiction. Private climate litigants will nevertheless draw inspiration from the ruling, and courts in other countries will likely be motivated by the Dutch court’s willingness to widely interpret domestic law to help combat climate change.