Canada’s Climate Policies Go on Trial

On Oct. 25, 2019, the activist Greta Thunberg headlined a rally for roughly 10,000 people in Vancouver, B.C. The event coincided with the filing of a lawsuit against the Canadian government by a group of young people who claimed that the country was not moving fast enough to transition away from fossil fuels, and was thus violating the rights of Canadian citizens to life, liberty and security. Yesterday, exactly seven years and one day after that rally, the lawsuit went to trial.

The case, La Rose v. His Majesty the King, is one of the few climate lawsuits against a government to make it to trial, and the first youth-led federal case in Canada to be heard. It is also the first major case against a country to be heard since a landmark decision last year by the International Court of Justice, which ruled that nations had a legal obligation to protect people from the “urgent and existential threat” of climate change.

The trial will take place in two phases and stretch into next year. But in the rapidly expanding universe of climate litigation, La Rose v. His Majesty is being closely watched as a potentially pivotal case. “What makes this case so remarkable is not just the constitutional questions at stake, but the possibility of a court holding a national government accountable for its role in perpetuating the climate crisis and requiring meaningful action to protect young people’s fundamental rights,” said Mat dos Santos, co-executive director of Our Children’s Trust, one of the legal groups supporting the plaintiffs.

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