Organizations

This page contains some of the international organizations working on climate litigation, the rights of nature, and other efforts to use the legal system to keep fossil fuels in the ground. For country specific organizations, view your country page.

Note: The categories below are approximate and included for organizational purposes alone. They are not intended to fully encompass the varied work an organization does.

Advocacy, Legal Counsel, and Supporting Litigation

 * Action 4 Justice is a global civil society platform that was formed by a coalition of NGOs including Greenpeace, Oxfam, Transparency International, the Forest People’s Programme and IHRDA. It seeks to build capacity, redistribute legal knowledge, create partnerships between legal activists, and empower communities through the creation of an informative platform to improve access to justice by providing practical advice on how legal action can be used for social justice.


 * The Business & Human Rights Resource Center has compiled a directory with the names of lawyers working to hold corporations legally accountable for human rights violations. You can search this directory by country, find contact information for the respective individuals and organizations and their work.


 * The Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA) is a organitation that It uses its law enforcement expertise to direct and coordinate other organizations and private citizens in their efforts to generate, preserve and collect information concerning criminal or otherwise illegal activities relevant to climate change. Through its directions, CCCA ensures that information collected by others is relevant, as complete as possible, and admissible and probative in legal proceedings. It also helps preserve relevant information that would otherwise be lost.


 * The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) has used the power of law since 1989 to protect the environment, promote human rights, and ensure a just and sustainable society. With offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland, CIEL’s team of attorneys, policy experts, and support staff works to provide legal counsel and advocacy, policy research, and capacity building across  three program areas: Climate & Energy, Environmental Health, and People, Land, & Resources. It supports a number of strategic climate lawsuits around the world.


 * The Climate Litigation Accelerator (CLX) is an initiative of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law School. The goal of the Climate Litigation Accelerator is to support the speed and scale of legal action necessary to address the climate emergency in the timeframe left to avoid triggering extreme scenarios of global warming. CLX focuses on research, litigation and advocacy, network building, and hosting workshops.


 * The Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW) helps communities speak out for clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet. They are a global alliance of attorneys, scientists and other advocates collaborating across borders to promote grassroots efforts to build a sustainable, just future. ELAW advocates, working in their home countries, know best how to protect the environment. By giving partners the legal and scientific support they need, ELAW helps challenge environmental abuses and builds a worldwide corps of skilled, committed advocates working to protect ecosystems and communities for generations to come. we recommend you look at the report Holding Corporations Accountable for Damaging the Climate (2014).


 * ESCR-Net is an international collaboration of over 280 social movements, NGOs and advocates across 75 countries that seeks to build a global movement to make environmental, economic, social, and cultural rights a reality for all. To do this, they focus on corporate accountability, strategic litigation, economic policy, and supporting social movements.


 * The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative tracks and discloses information and data about extractive industries with the goal of promoting the open and accountable management of oil, gas, and mineral resources. EITI works in 55 countries.


 * The Foundation for International Law for the Environment (FILE) works with partners across multiple countries who are pioneering legal innovation and bringing emblematic precedent-setting just energy transition, land use, finance, and field building cases.


 * The Grantham Research Institute presents annual reports on climate policy and litigation. See: Climate Change Laws of the World.


 * The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung has the objective of fostering democracy and upholding human rights, taking action to prevent the destruction of the global ecosystem, advancing equality between women and men, securing peace through con­flict prevention in crisis zones, and defending the freedom of individuals against excessive state and economic power. The Heinrich Böll Foundation supports the exchange between climate litigation practitioners globally.


 * Oil Change International is a research, communications, and advocacy organization focused on exposing the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitating the ongoing transition to clean energy. Rooted in community solidarity and principled policy analysis, they work within larger movements to build a fossil free future.


 * PILnet connects lawyers with pro bono clients. PILnet's network of pro bono lawyers is global. PILnet supports the resilience of civil society organizations as they face challenges around the world, providing tools to maintain well-being, grow, and execute their missions in the most effective and impactful way possible.


 * The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law develops legal techniques to fight climate change, trains law students and lawyers in their use, and provides the public with up-to-date resources on key topics in climate law and regulation. They work closely with the scientists at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and with governmental, nongovernmental, and academic organizations. They activities are spearheaded by Michael Gerrard, Faculty Director of the Sabin Center and Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School, and Michael Burger, Executive Director of the Sabin Center and Senior Research Scholar at Columbia Law School. comprehensive databases of climate litigation cases (US and Non-US).

Bringing Climate Litigation Cases

 * Client Earth is a charity that uses the power of the law to protect the planet and the people who live on it. We are lawyers and environmental experts who are fighting against climate change and to protect nature and the environment.


 * Earth Rights International works in multiple countries on litigation to stop destructive projects, protect local communities, hold corporations accountable, and defend the rights of those who stand up to abusive governments and corporations.


 * '''Food & Water Watch is a US organization fighting against fracking that has brought many cases to stop it.


 * Friends of the Earth International is a federation of 73 autonomous member organizations. Roughly half call themselves "Friends of the Earth" in their own language. Friends of the Earth envision a peaceful and sustainable world based on societies living in harmony with nature.


 * The Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) is a unique non-profit organization that pursues innovative legal actions across borders, challenging states and other powerful actors involved with human rights violations. They are supporting the Youth for Climate Justice case.


 * Greenpeace International is an independent campaigning organization, which uses peaceful, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and develop solutions for a green and peaceful future. Their goal is to ensure the ability of the earth to nurture life in all its diversity. Is has supported climate lawsuits in the Philippines, Norway, Germany, and other countries and published a manual on developing new ones.


 * Our Children's Trust is a non-profit public interest law firm that provides legal services to youth from diverse backgrounds to secure their legal rights to a safe climate. They are behind many of the Youth v. Gov cases including Juliana v. United States.

Defending Climate Activists

 * The Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC) supports movements that seek to dismantle the political and economic structures at the root of social inequality and environmental destruction. We provide litigation, education, legal, and strategic resources to strengthen and embolden their success.


 * The Climate Defense Project (CDP)is a nonprofit organization that provides legal and intellectual support to the climate movement through legal representation, public education, and rights training. Its main activities are supporting criminal cases involving climate protesters, developing legal arguments, and publication of educational materials. CDP has been a leading advocate of the necessity defense — also known as the choice of evils defense — in which climate protesters have argued that their actions to protect the climate are legally justified. CDP has helped secure some of the first written rulings recognizing the climate necessity defense in the United States. It was founded by Harvard Law School graduates who also filed the first fossil fuel divestment lawsuit against a university.

Funding Climate Litigation
Please see the Funding sources page.

Legal Advice to Grassroots Activists and Organizations

 * The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund provides free and low cost legal services, organizing support, education and news to communities facing injustice. They seek to protect worker, environmental, and democratic rights, as well as the rights of nature.


 * Environment-Rights.org is a collaborative resource portal for environmental human rights defenders. It is designed as a ‘living’ platform and, as such, it is constantly updated and expanded.


 * Namati advance social and environmental justice by building a movement of people who know, use, and shape the law. They do grassroots legal trainings and empowerment to build a movement of community paralegals worldwide.

Protection of Environmental Rights & Rights of Nature

 * The Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights works with governments, tribal nations, indigenous communities, civil society, and grassroots activists to protect the human right to a healthy environment and establish the rights of the environment itself – the rights of nature.


 * The Forest Peoples Programmewas founded in 1990 in response to the forest crisis, specifically to support indigenous forest peoples’ struggles to defend their lands and livelihoods. Forest Peoples Programme operates around the tropical forest belt where it serves to bridge the gap between policy makers and forest peoples. Through advocacy, practical projects and capacity building, FPP supports forest peoples to deal directly with the outside powers that shape their lives and futures.


 * The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity is a network of over 250 social movements, civil society organizations, trade unions and communities seeking to increase corporate responsibility by resisting land grabs, extractive mining, exploitative wages and environmental destruction caused by corporations globally but particularly in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.


 * Stop Ecocide promotes and facilitates steps towards making ecocide a crime at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in order to prevent devastation of nature and so protect the future of life on Earth.

United Nations Entities

 * The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) is the environmental wing of the United Nations and the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.


 * The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment was established in March 2012 by the UN Human Rights Council. The Special Rapporteur's mandate is to study the human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and promote best practices relating to the use of human rights in environmental policymaking.