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

by allowing for evidence on proportional responsibility. The UNEP 2020 global status review on climate litigation suggested that climate attribution is being given more weight in the con- sideration of cases and determination of legally enforceable outcomes [58]. There are several types of detection and attribution studies focusing on: trends or long- term changes in climate variables; changes in extremes; weather or climate events; climate- related impacts; and the estimation of climate sensitivity using observational constraints. Detection and attribution studies can be done at various scales ranging from regional to global [59]. CCL includes both (a) cases where the claim is based on an established law, for which com- pliance/enforcement is sought, and (b) cases where there is no established law, but claimants assert that there ought to be (e.g. through expanding the scope of existing constitutional man- dates, human rights statues, common law principals, etc). CCL has often been pursued through the international legal pathways of multilateral institutions and the United Nations system, drawing upon such doctrines as The Convention on the Rights of the Child, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Organizations, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, amongst others. In the European Union (EU), litigation has often been orchestrated via reference to the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the EU in addition to other relevant national/ interna- tional laws [60]. In the United States, CCL has been brought at both federal and state levels

[47]. Most CCL has been against governments, but cases have been increasingly against corpo- rate entities in relation to a widening array of financial, company, and corporate planning laws [61]. With growing requirements for corporate adherence to Environmental and Social Gover- nance Standards (ESG’s), litigation against corporations is likely to increase in frequency in future. Interestingly, eco-centric law is becoming a reimagination of the anthropocentric founda- tions of the international legal system. Eco-centric concepts are transforming human-centered legal systems, that historically undervalue non-human life. This is based on newly articulated eco-centric ideas that “to treat nature as just one of several competing (economic) interests results in a tendency to trump more qualitative public interest notions, such as ecosystem pro- tection, intergenerational and intragenerational equity and even cultural values” [62]. This represents a profound departure from an anthropocentric framing of the environment as a mere resource-giving vehicle for human exploitation towards viewing the environment in Kantian terms, as “an end in itself”, as a legal entity with rights of protection. Eco-centric concepts now extend to “wild property law”, ascribing personhood to “Eco- entities” in law, and laws of “Ecocide”. The French government is the first country to pass a law of Ecocide (2020) [63]. Despite some commentators saying this is a diluted form of the citi- zens’ convention recommendation, this is another indicator of the increasingly eco-centric ori-

entation of recent legal developments. As legal developments are stimulated by this normative shift towards eco-centricity, a growing focus for public health stakeholders will pertain to the incorporation of a public health mandate into this new eco-centric legal paradigm. Will eco- centric laws be grounded in the One Health model [64] championed by environmental health practitioners and others? Will they respond to our need to reconcile goals of societal develop- ment, public health, and ecological preservation? It is these questions at the intersection of law and public health which will be important to address in future interdisciplinary collaborations. Eco-centric laws have been passed in countries including: Ecuador in 2008 [65], Bolivia in 2010 and 2012 [66] (Law of the Rights of Mother Earth and Law of Mother Earth) and Panama in 2022. Panama grants nature the “right to exist, persist, and regenerate its life cycles”, defined as a “unique, indivisible and self-regulating community of living beings, elements and eco-sys- tems interrelated to each other that sustains, contains and reproduces all beings” [67]. Other PLOS ONE Public health as a legal tool in climate litigation PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268633 June 15, 2022 6 / 31