YCJ Publications
Child/Youth Climate Litigation: Tracking Children’s Rights and Children’s Impact
Children and youth have been engaging extensively in climate action around the world. They have been doing this by protesting in the streets, talking with governments, and most recently by taking climate litigation against governments and companies. In this Article, these climate cases are considered from a children’s rights perspective. Using the Youth Climate Justice database, fifty cases are analyzed to consider two aspects of climate litigation—the children’s rights involved in the case, and the significance of the outcomes of the cases. It is concluded that climate cases are a new form of child participation in society, and that child participation has moved from being something primarily aimed at benefiting children to a phenomenon that can benefit the human rights of all.
- Authors
Aoife Daly and Liesl Muller
- Year
- 2025
- Journal Name
- Washington and Lee Law Review
- Category
- Journal Article
- Full Citation
Aoife Daly and Liesl Muller, Child/Youth Climate Litigation: Tracking Children’s Rights and Children’s Impact, 82 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1049 (2025). Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol82/iss3/7
- Link to Publication
- https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4923&context=wlulr
Abstract
Children and youth have been engaging extensively in climate action around the world. They have been doing this by protesting in the streets, talking with governments, and most recently by taking climate litigation against governments and
companies. In this Article, these climate cases are considered from a children’s rights perspective. Using the Youth Climate Justice database, fifty cases are analyzed to consider two aspects of climate litigation—the children’s rights involved in the case, and the significance of the outcomes of the cases. It is concluded that climate cases are a new form of child participation in society, and that child participation has moved from being something primarily aimed at benefiting children to a phenomenon that can benefit the human rights of all.