Law in Action

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The Law Show

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Factual: Politics

Conversation about the laws making headlines, and the laws that shape everyday life.

The Law Show is your guide to the law and the legal decisions that have a bearing on everyone in the UK.

Weekly conversation that will give you an in-depth understanding of the law stories making news and the legal decisions that could have a bearing on everyone in the UK. Whether it's unpicking a landmark legal ruling, explaining how laws are made or seeking clarity for you on a legal issue, The Law Show will be your guide.

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The Law Show: Can the law fight climate change?

Can the law fight climate change?

BBC Radio 4 - The Law Show, Can the law fight climate change?

As governments and fossil fuel companies are being sued, can the law fight climate change?

Around the world people are taking governments and companies to court to fight climate change. Could "ecocide" become a crime? How is the law evolving? With Joshua Rozenberg.

Around the world environmentalists are taking governments and companies to court to fight climate change. Joshua Rozenberg explores how the law is evolving into a powerful activists' tool. 

In the first case of its kind, in a ruling that was upheld by the Dutch Supreme Court, the Netherlands were found to have a duty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% compared to 1990, and this by December of last year. What happened?

Apart from governments, companies are being sued by individuals or shareholders. For example, a Peruvian farmer has filed a case in a German court against a German electricity company for what he claims is its role in warming up the climate enough for him to be threatened by flooding as a nearby Andean glacier melts. 

In Poland activist shareholders sued the board of their utility company to stop the development of a new coal mine, claiming an "indefensible" financial risk, due to rising carbon costs and falling renewables prices. 

And senior lawyers are developing the concept of "ecocide", with the aim to make it an indictable offence at the International Criminal Court, analogous to genocide or crimes against humanity. 

So how is the law evolving to tackle climate change, asks Joshua Rozenberg.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Researcher: Diane Richardson

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