Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Varying Structurizations of Legal Remedies to Climate Change

• In Event: Environmental Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7: Law, Institutions, and Governance Systems

Abstract

In this paper, climate change will be recognized as a global problem in need of global
solutions. It will survey the panorama of legal remedies that have been created to redress
environmental harms as a global issue. Some of these remedies allow nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) to file lawsuits in the name of plaintiffs residing in developing nations and in
indigenous communities that lack the socioeconomic wherewithal and political clout to redress, let
alone halt, the environmental degradation surrounding them. The paper will provide an historical
account of the accomplishments of the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) as a valuable weapon in the
arsenal of environmental activists prior to the April 17, 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kiobel v.
Royal Dutch Shell limiting the long-arm jurisdiction of ATCA.

Author

• Gwendolyn Yvonne Alexis, DePaul University