Public Interest Litigation for a Warming Planet
Brian Preston
One of the key law jobs you, as law students, will undertake once in legal practice is litigation. You will use the legal tools of the substantive and procedural law explained in earlier chapters of this book to litigate a legal claim in the courts. The litigation may be brought in the public interest to address climate change. This chapter provides practical tips and techniques for public interest litigation, following the course of the litigation from its beginning to its end. It will seek to explain in simple terms how you can be an effective, climate conscious lawyer at each step.
Key Questions
- What is the role and purpose of the lawyer in public interest litigation? How might this differ in comparison to other forms of litigation?
- Before reading the chapter, what do you think are the steps in public interest litigation and how can you be the most effective litigator in each of these steps? When you have finished the chapter, is there anything you would add to the steps outlined in it? Which steps do you think are most important?
- What challenges face public interest litigators in climate change cases?
Chapter Outline
Court action ‘intended to achieve change to law and policy that will benefit individuals and communities beyond those directly involved in the campaign'.[1]
[1] Andrea Durbach, Luke McNamara, Simon Rice and Mark Rix, ‘Public Interest Litigation: Making the case in Australia’ (2013) 38(4) Alternative Law Journal 219, 219. It should be noted that defining ‘public interest’ is notoriously challenging, and the term has not been definitively defined by legislation or by the courts: see, e.g., Chris Wheeler, ‘The Public Interest Revisited - We Know It’s Important But Do We Know What it Means?’ (2016) 72 Australian Institute of Administrative Law Forum 34–49.
