Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You See? Exploring the Tension Between Strategic Choices and Claimants’ Voices in Environmental Litigation in the EU

This paper poses an important challenge to the growing trend of strategic environmental litigation in the EU: when making strategic choices about bringing, framing, and litigating claims, what becomes more important—being heard through strategically critical procedural choices or being true through...

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Main Author: Reilly Anne Dempsey Willis
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press 2024-08-01
Series:German Law Journal
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2071832224000488/type/journal_article
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author Reilly Anne Dempsey Willis
author_facet Reilly Anne Dempsey Willis
author_sort Reilly Anne Dempsey Willis
collection DOAJ
description This paper poses an important challenge to the growing trend of strategic environmental litigation in the EU: when making strategic choices about bringing, framing, and litigating claims, what becomes more important—being heard through strategically critical procedural choices or being true through ensuring that rights holders and the environment remain at the forefront of decision-making? There are many legal hurdles to bringing environmental claims and it is possible that the voice of the environment and those most adversely affected by its degradation is lost in the strategic legal decision-making. This study uses a small number unstructured scoping interviews with practitioners active in bringing litigation to the CJEU to inductively analyse voice and representation in strategic environmental litigation. This initial research indicates that there are areas which should be further explored. First, all of the practitioners brought up the issue of access to resources. This raises concerns about potential elitism. Second, practitioners highlighted that there are numerous strategic choices made during case selection and framing which could affect how voices are heard. Finally, practitioners felt strongly that admissibility rules have a negative impact on claimants’ voices. Challenges in legal standing and establishing individual harm or direct concern have an enormous impact on what claims are heard and how they are heard.
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spelling doaj-art-0d3c179cdb7640c4a006f1949599eb1c2025-01-24T12:49:04ZengCambridge University PressGerman Law Journal2071-83222024-08-01251011102110.1017/glj.2024.48Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You See? Exploring the Tension Between Strategic Choices and Claimants’ Voices in Environmental Litigation in the EUReilly Anne Dempsey Willis0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3845-9389School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Suffolk, Ipswich, UKThis paper poses an important challenge to the growing trend of strategic environmental litigation in the EU: when making strategic choices about bringing, framing, and litigating claims, what becomes more important—being heard through strategically critical procedural choices or being true through ensuring that rights holders and the environment remain at the forefront of decision-making? There are many legal hurdles to bringing environmental claims and it is possible that the voice of the environment and those most adversely affected by its degradation is lost in the strategic legal decision-making. This study uses a small number unstructured scoping interviews with practitioners active in bringing litigation to the CJEU to inductively analyse voice and representation in strategic environmental litigation. This initial research indicates that there are areas which should be further explored. First, all of the practitioners brought up the issue of access to resources. This raises concerns about potential elitism. Second, practitioners highlighted that there are numerous strategic choices made during case selection and framing which could affect how voices are heard. Finally, practitioners felt strongly that admissibility rules have a negative impact on claimants’ voices. Challenges in legal standing and establishing individual harm or direct concern have an enormous impact on what claims are heard and how they are heard.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2071832224000488/type/journal_articleStrategic litigationenvironmental claimsvoicerepresentationmarginalized communitiesCJEU
spellingShingle Reilly Anne Dempsey Willis
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You See? Exploring the Tension Between Strategic Choices and Claimants’ Voices in Environmental Litigation in the EU
German Law Journal
Strategic litigation
environmental claims
voice
representation
marginalized communities
CJEU
title Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You See? Exploring the Tension Between Strategic Choices and Claimants’ Voices in Environmental Litigation in the EU
title_full Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You See? Exploring the Tension Between Strategic Choices and Claimants’ Voices in Environmental Litigation in the EU
title_fullStr Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You See? Exploring the Tension Between Strategic Choices and Claimants’ Voices in Environmental Litigation in the EU
title_full_unstemmed Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You See? Exploring the Tension Between Strategic Choices and Claimants’ Voices in Environmental Litigation in the EU
title_short Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Can You See? Exploring the Tension Between Strategic Choices and Claimants’ Voices in Environmental Litigation in the EU
title_sort brown bear brown bear what can you see exploring the tension between strategic choices and claimants voices in environmental litigation in the eu
topic Strategic litigation
environmental claims
voice
representation
marginalized communities
CJEU
url https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2071832224000488/type/journal_article
work_keys_str_mv AT reillyannedempseywillis brownbearbrownbearwhatcanyouseeexploringthetensionbetweenstrategicchoicesandclaimantsvoicesinenvironmentallitigationintheeu