Earthjustice’s International Team Sees Glimmers of Hope Around the World at Year’s End

It’s the darkest time of the year in the Global North, and the future of international efforts to address the climate crisis appears bleak. But as we end 2024 in the Earthjustice International Program, we see cause for hope: embers lighting a path for climate and environmental progress that will come in 2025.

The light is coming from the InterAmerican Court, where in March, our decades-long collaboration with AIDA and our Peruvian partners yielded the La Oroya v. Peru victory, setting a precedent for the right to a healthy environment that will support claims for human rights protections throughout the Americas in 2025.

We saw a spark from Indonesia, where the Supreme Court held that government pollution monitoring data is not a protected trade secret, and must be made available to the public — a major win for transparency and public participation that will make future litigation possible.

We are seeing light in South Africa, where this month we had the privilege of working with the Centre for Environmental Rights to support youth-based climate litigation, resulting in a high court victory finding that the government’s approval of new coal-fired power was unconstitutional because it failed to consider harm to present and future generations.

In Europe, where it’s been a hard year for international environmental law, our UN Representative in Geneva, Yves Lador, reflected on the resilience of the UN system. It is not breaking despite petrostates running climate conferences, orders of magnitude missing from climate finance commitments, and the stalled plastics treaty talks. The hard, steady work we have been at for decades – advancing climate, environment, and human rights norms and standards — has helped create a strong base for the system that is holding fast right now, allowing future progress to continue in 2025.

Thank you to our partners, clients, supporters, colleagues, and friends who have illuminated our way in 2024.