The territory of the Wet’suwet’en Indigenous Peoples sits in the shadows of Canada’s snow-capped western Coast Mountains. Dotted by pine trees and laced with glacier-fed lakes, much of it is a vast wilderness that has supported the Wet’suwet’en for centuries.
But the climate crisis is threatening to change that.
As Canada warms twice as fast as the global average, Wet’suwet’en lands have weathered a surge in wildfires and pine-killing beetle infestations, says Chief Dsta'hyl, a community leader. Many Wet’suwet’en worry that left unchecked climate change could devastate local fish stocks, speed the decline of game animals, like moose, and cloud the air with toxic wildfire haze.
That is why in 2020, the Wet’suwet’en sued the Canadian government in court, calling on federal officials to step up efforts to lower the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the climate crisis.
Canada has announced plans to reduce its emissions by up to 45 per cent by 2030 and says it is committed to working with Indigenous communities to address climate change.
“Climate change is going to jeopardize everything,” says Dsta'hyl. “That’s why this climate action has been brought forth. We have a responsibility to our clans… to future generations.”
The Wet’suwet’en are among a growing number of Indigenous Peoples around the world who are turning to the courts to compel countries to take concrete action to address climate change and other environmental perils. Experts have called the cases a new frontier in the global environmental movement and are hopeful they can jumpstart what is, in many places, a halting political effort to counter some of the gravest threats to the planet.
“It is still early days, but these cases are changing the dynamics of the fight to save the Earth,” said Patricia Kameri-Mbote, the Director of the Law Division at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “That’s crucial because humanity is pushing the planet to the breaking point, and we need to reverse course – quickly.”
Rising tide of cases
There were more than 2,100 climate-change-related court cases filed globally at the end of 2022, more than double the total from 2017, according to a recent report from UNEP. The report did not break down the number of cases launched by Indigenous Peoples, but it notes that those, too, are rising.
Most of those cases centre on human rights issues, with Indigenous Peoples arguing environmental degradation is threatening their culture, their access to food and water, and their lives. More than 100 nations guarantee their citizens a right to a clean environment. A growing number of Indigenous Peoples are also filing suits seeking to hold governments accountable to commitments they have made under international environmental accords, like the Paris climate change agreement.
In Argentina, Australia, Ecuador, France, New Zealand and the United States of America, among other places, Indigenous Peoples have launched climate-related challenges, leading to some major victories. In 2017, Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled an attempt to divert a river for mining purposes violated the rights of the Wayúu people. The court said climate change had already stifled the river’s flow, and a diversion would threaten the Wayúu’s food security.
“Climate change is going to jeopardize everything.”
But overall, Indigenous Peoples’ climate lawsuits have had “limited success”, found the recent report from UNEP. The Wet’suwet’en case was initially dismissed before community members appealed. (The appeal is ongoing.) As well, in a widely watched 2021 case in Ecuador, a lower court ruled against Indigenous groups that sought to prevent gas flaring by a major petrochemical company.
Indigenous Peoples often see their cases dismissed on technical grounds before the meat of their argument has been made. Courts frequently reject claims based on the legal concept of standing, saying Indigenous communities have failed to demonstrate that they have been affected by climate change and other environmental threats, says UNEP’s Kameri-Mbote.
Indigenous Peoples also often struggle in court because in many countries the legal system does not recognize land rights without paper titles, something many groups lack, said Beverly Longid, Coordinator of the International Indigenous People Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation.
"There is a need to overhaul the entire legal system as far as lands are concerned, which is not something the state will give up easily,” says Longid, who is based in the Philippines.
International appeal
Indigenous Peoples have seen more legal successes before UN bodies. In September 2022, the UN Human Rights Committee said Australia was violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples in the low-lying Torres Strait Islands by not doing enough about climate change. A group of islanders had claimed rising seas, a byproduct of the climate crisis, could drive them from their homes. The ruling marked the first time a UN body had found a state violated international human rights laws through an inadequate climate policy.
That decision came shortly after the UN General Assembly declared that everyone on the planet has a right to a healthy environment. The resolution is not legally binding. But its backers are hopeful it can prompt countries to strengthen their environmental legislation, giving Indigenous campaigners more ammunition with which to challenge ecologically destructive policies and projects.
For many Indigenous Peoples, the stakes in these legal battles could not be higher. Due to their close ties to the land, Indigenous communities from the Arctic to the Kalahari Desert have been among the first to feel the effects of climate change. Floods, droughts, wildfires and the disappearance of wildlife have become an added burden for communities already struggling with joblessness, discrimination and political marginalization.
In many places there are fears climate change, combined with other threats like pollution and unregulated mining, logging and oil drilling, could force Indigenous Peoples from their land – and wipe out their culture. In the Wet’suwet’en lawsuit, lawyers said the Wet’suwet’en “cannot be who they are at some other place.”
“Stewards” of the land
Along with countering climate change, supporters say Indigenous Peoples’ court wins are crucial to protecting the fraying web of life on Earth. Indigenous Peoples make up 5 per cent of the global population but traditionally own or manage more than a quarter the world's land. Those territories are home to 80 per cent of plants, animals and other living things – and there nature is declining less rapidly than in other places. But despite those rights, many groups lack control over their land, which is subject to logging, mining, poaching and other environmental threats.
“Indigenous Peoples have centuries, and in some cases millennia, of experience as stewards of the land,” said UNEP’s Kameri-Mbote. “They have played a fundamental role in protecting biodiversity and their knowledge of the environment can play a vital role in the global effort to adapt to climate change.”
"Intimidation is part of the work. We face it every day.”
For many Indigenous communities mounting a legal challenge remains an uphill battle, though. Some lack the know-how and the funds to launch lawsuits that can drag on for years. Many also face violence and intimidation. Globally, some 200 people, many Indigenous Peoples, were killed in 2021 for standing up for the environment, according to the non-profit group Global Witness.
It is a peril Hugo Jabini knows well. The Suriname native orchestrated a decades-long push to limit logging and mining on the lands of his people, the Saramaka, who live in a remote stretch of Amazonian rainforest. While the drive resulted in a landmark win at the Inter American Court for Human Rights, Jabini was forced to flee to the Netherlands in 2022 after receiving death threats.
"Intimidation is part of the work. We face it every day," he says. “When you come for your rights, others see it as a threat.”
Jabini is still pushing for the full implementation of the Inter American Court ruling, which came down in 2007 and is legally binding on Suriname. While he admits that he’s frustrated that logging continues on Saramaka land, he is proud of the precedent the ruling set for other Amazon basin countries.
“More Indigenous Peoples are becoming aware of the power of the law. It's the peaceful way to make sure you get your rights. If we respect the law, if governments respect the law, we don't need armed conflict.”
The United Nations has recognized the threats to environmental defenders and called for their protection. UNEP builds on this work to support environmental defenders through its Defenders Policy, through which we:
- Denounce the attacks, torture, intimidation and murders of environmental defenders;
- Advocate with states and non-state actors, including business, for better protection of environmental rights and the people standing up for these rights;
- Support the responsible management of natural resources;
- Request government and companies’ accountability for the different events where environmental defenders have been affected / murdered.
This story was updated on 20 September 2024 to correct a figure
