Law in Action

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The Law Show

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Factual: Crime & Justice

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: Climate Change Challenging the Law

Climate Change Challenging the Law

BBC Radio 4 - The Law Show, Climate Change Challenging the Law

The legal challenges of climate change: human rights law, fossil fuel investments, ethics

How is the law dealing with new challenges due to climate change? Is protection from global warming a human right? Also: fossil fuel contracts, and climate-ethical legal dilemmas.

The law is having to deal with new challenges due to climate change.  Is it a human right to be protected from global warming?  Do the 46 member states of the Council of Europe have to reduce carbon emissions faster to protect their citizens' right to life? The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been asked to rule on these questions.  We hear about the case of the Swiss 'Klimaseniorinnen', elderly women arguing that climate change-induced heatwaves threaten their lives. 

The little-known Energy Charter Treaty enables companies to sue governments for compensation for the loss of predicted profits, if signatory states reduce the value of contracts such as by banning new fossil fuel extraction projects.  Could this deter countries from passing the carbon-reduction measures necessary to combat climate change? Or is the ECT a tool worth keeping, as it also protects renewable energy contracts that governments promised subsidies for?

What are the ethical choices for climate-conscious lawyers when it comes to either representing fossil fuel companies, or prosecuting climate change protesters? Could, or even should, lawyers refuse to act for certain clients, or to prosecute certain defendants?  What's more important: fighting global warming or ensuring access to justice for all and upholding the rule of the law as it stands? We discuss the dilemmas, and some new guidance for lawyers. 

Presenter: Joshua Rozenberg
Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Researcher: Bethan Ashmead Latham 
Production Coordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound Engineer: Neil Churchill 
Editor: Simon Watts

Photo of Swiss 'Klimaseniorinnen' activists at Strasbourg on 29.3.2023: © Greenpeace / Shervine Nafissi

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