Legal implications of the climate-health crisis: A case study analysis of the role of public health in climate litigation

anthropogenic activities will prove essential. To ensure that future legal action on environmen- tal issues serves public health objectives, two conditions must be present: 1) public health- framed argumentation must feature strongly in allegations of wrongdoing and 2) courts are receptive to public health arguments and accord their deserved weight in the holistic assess- ment of cases and determination of legal outcomes. To promote such conditions, we issue the following recommendations to potential plaintiffs, public health stakeholders, climate activists, climate-engaged investors, NGOs, and other institutions: 1. Initiate or support legal cases in every jurisdiction, backed by public health science, to put pressure on governments and corporations, to upscale their commitment to de-carbonize, and uphold their duty of care responsibilities. 2. Advocate for the democratic passage of eco-centric laws and climate liability incentives, both national and international, which feature health as a primary objective; this can include the passage of an International Law of Ecocide. And interpret existing statutory requirements in a public health frame to provide a clear legal path for the pursuit of liti- gation according to internationally adopted legal principles of human rights and public health. 3. Mobilize additional funds for climate-health research to quantify impacts, assess attribution and assess adaptation strategies as alternative options to provide the necessary scientific evi- dence demonstrating the indisputable, ubiquitous, tangible, existing and imminent, and

clearly anthropogenically-driven threats to human health 4. Promote greater awareness of climate-health links amongst public interest groups by incor- porating dedicated climate-health curricula into higher education. Legal epidemiology, as the study of law in the cause, distribution and prevention of disease and injury, must be extended to the field of climate law to ensure legislation is instrumentalized most effectively for public health protection and promotion 5. Develop national and international environmental health law expert panels including strong public health expertise to provide expert testimony and briefings during court hear- ings and consult with judges on the sound interpretation and application of climate-attribu- tion science Limitations We recognize the limitations inherent in drawing conclusions based on a review of western- centric sources, which may well have failed to capture the full scope of litigation. Most impor- tantly, legal cases from certain regions and countries are not all included in the databases searched. While nine translated climate laws and policies are reported from China, including the “National Plan for Tackling Climate Change 2014–2020”, no case litigation is reported, even though there is indication such cases have taken place in China. Similarly, three climate laws and policies are reported from Saudi Arabia including the “Saudi Arabia Vision 2030” and 26 from Vietnam, yet no cases are reported for either country. Aside from the countries and regions for which case laws have not been included, there

may also have been criminal and penal charges (i.e. criminal litigation) not captured given the Western-centric focus on civil litigation within these databases. The sources used are also both English language databases, respectively from the United States and the United Kingdom. The Common Law system underpinning the reported cases also has roots in the British Empire [127], introducing an inevitable bias in the legal scope of cases captured in this review. PLOS ONE Public health as a legal tool in climate litigation PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268633 June 15, 2022 23 / 31