Back to issue
Cover of: Die Cupola im Anthropozän: Klimahaftungsklagen der Zukunft
Malte-Christian Gruber

Die Cupola im Anthropozän: Klimahaftungsklagen der Zukunft

[The Cupola in the Anthropocene: Climate Liability Lawsuits of the Future.]
Section: Essays
Volume 78 (2023) / Issue 10, pp. 417-428 (12)
Published 15.05.2023
DOI 10.1628/jz-2023-0138
Published in German.
  • article PDF
  • available
  • 10.1628/jz-2023-0138
Due to a system change, access problems and other issues may occur. We are working with urgency on a solution. We apologise for any inconvenience.
Summary
One of the future challenges of law is to create possibilities for dealing with conflicts in ways that meet the fundamental requirements of environmental and climate protection.
Climate responsibility, as a collective ecological responsibility, is not only expected socially from state policymakers and business enterprises, but also increasingly claimed legally. With the perspective of an ecological private law that thinks of interests worthy of protection and of legal subjectivity from the point of view of vulnerability, new legal channels open up for those affected to take action against impending climate hazards or damage and to demand compensation. Fatefully connected by jointly-suffered climate catastrophes, life communities assemble as associations of human and non-human beings that all incur injury. Legal protection for these injured beings can thus no longer be directed exclusively to human needs, but must be based on the ubiquitous vulnerability of all forms of life – a vulnerability that is particularly evident in the face of climate change. The ecological private law of the future will have to ensure that those living entities affected can sue on the basis of their own right. In this way, an effective ecological climate law protection would be created, whose essential task is to help enforce climate policy decisions made in the interest of society.