2023 Year-in-review
This was a watershed year for Our Children’s Trust, where we saw the results of more than a decade of legal strategy on behalf of children in courts around the world.
In the U.S.
We brought the first-ever constitutional climate trial in United States history to Montana’s courts and won a landmark, science-based victory declaring that Montana’s youth have a constitutionally guaranteed right to a life-sustaining climate system.
We argued and won our opposition to Hawai'i’s motion to dismiss, clearing the path for a first-of-its-kind trial on the emissions caused by Hawaii’s transportation sector.
We filed a new federal constitutional climate lawsuit against the United States Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of children in California.
We secured a major victory in Juliana v. United States that put the case back on the path to trial.
We submitted and collaborated on 14 public comments to federal agencies, providing our expert recommendation informed by the constitutional obligations of these agencies, the rights of youth, and the science that must guide the decision-making of these government entities.
Around the World
We argued Canada’s first youth-led climate case before the Federal Court of Appeals and received a favorable ruling, putting the youth plaintiffs on the path to trial.
We advanced groundbreaking constitutional climate litigation in 12 active cases in four countries, representing 169 youth plaintiffs who are turning to the courts to protect their human right to a safe climate.
We centered the importance of climate science in the highest chamber of the European Court of Human Rights by filing a brief containing key scientific evidence that underscores the relationship between climate change and the violation of human rights in the first three climate cases to be heard by the Court.
We appeared before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on behalf of 21 youth leaders together with 18 pediatric associations representing over one million medical professionals in over 120 countries to urge the court to adopt a science-based human rights standard to address the climate emergency.
In a case before the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea brought by island nations most threatened by sea-level rise, we filed briefing on behalf of 24 young people asking the court to act swiftly to halt greenhouse gas emissions to preserve our oceans.
In response to a call for comments by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, we submitted recommendations for resolving crucial deficiencies in the Committee’s draft “General Comment No. 26 on Children’s Rights and the Environment with a Special Focus on Climate Change,” emphasizing the urgency of addressing climate harms that children around the world are already experiencing and the need to rely on the best available climate science when setting targets for climate action.
In Community
We continued to develop and provide trauma-informed services to all our plaintiffs and their guardians, supported by a trauma-informed care curriculum for our staff that was co-created by our leadership and a leading trauma consultant.
We engaged 20,000+ people from concerned communities around the world through 80 events when our staff presented at conferences, community gatherings, and schools, and partner organization and supporters attended court hearings and trial.
We secured media coverage in major TV, radio, and print outlets with over 500 pieces of positive news coverage, many of which were syndicated to additional outlets around the world in over ten languages, with over 46.6 million views.
We empowered 58,000+ followers on social media across key platforms and our unique content was viewed over 1.3 million times and had over 78,000 unique engagements.
We educated the next generation of climate advocates by having 20 law clerks from 12 different law schools and 9 government affairs interns from 8 different universities.
We brought hope and a vision for the future with evidence of clean, renewable energy solutions that are cheaper than fossil and available now.
january 2023
We began 2023 by collectively representing 21 young people in Utah and Hawaiʻi who argue that their states are actively contributing to the climate crisis in violation of their constitutional rights. In Utah, we appealed Judge Robert Frost’s November 2022 ruling in Natalie R. v. State of Utah. Then, in the first court hearing in Navahine F. v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation, we argued why the case should move forward to trial.
Natalie R. v. State of Utah
Navahine F. v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation
FEBRUARY 2023
In February, a two-day hearing in Canada’s first-of-its-kind federal youth climate lawsuit, La Rose v. His Majesty the King, was held before a panel of three Federal Court of Appeal Justices. Collaborating with our Canadian colleagues, we framed the argument that the 15 young plaintiffs, from seven provinces and one territory, must be heard at trial.
Our Children’s Trust submitted recommendations to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child on its draft authoritative guidance for the 196 nations that have ratified the Convention of the Rights of the Child. We provided concrete recommendations in all seven priority areas, emphasizing the importance of climate science in setting climate action targets to address the defining child rights challenges of this century.
MARCH 2023
Our small but mighty 28-member staff — who live in eleven states and two countries — joined together for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic to prepare for the watershed year ahead. We then led two panels at the 41st Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at the University of Oregon School of Law. In Climate on Trial in the United States, we discussed the importance of establishing a trial record in constitutional rights cases with rigorously tested evidence in court. Then, in The Injustice of 1.5°C, we argued that, to protect human rights, judicial bodies must consider, understand, and base their decisions on the best available climate science.
Meanwhile, the 17 justices in the Grand Chamber at the European Court of Human Rights heard its first climate cases back-to-back: KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland, and Carême v. France. Our Children’s Trust, in partnership with leading global climate and human rights organizations, was invited to submit a Third-Party Intervention providing the court with scientific evidence that underscores the relationship between climate change and the violation of human rights. In conjunction with the hearing, we also published an article in Strasbourg Observers underscoring the importance of best available science in global climate litigation.
Also in March, we submitted our opening appeal brief in Layla H. v. Commonwealth of Virginia, on behalf of the 12 youth plaintiffs who argue that their state’s historic and ongoing permitting of fossil fuels is causing and contributing to the climate crisis and violating their constitutional rights. Leading legal scholars and medical professionals filed Amicus (“friend of the court”) briefs in support of the youth’s appeal, which was submitted in response to a September 2022 ruling from Judge Jenkins Jr. to dismiss the case.
March was also a month for big advancements. First, the Utah Supreme Court, in a rare move reserved for cases of legal importance, used their discretion to retain the appeal of our case Natalie R. v. State of Utah. Second, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken denied the request of 18 Republican Attorneys General to intervene as defendants in our federal climate lawsuit, Juliana v. United States. Third, a key ruling issued by a unanimous Hawaiʻi Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutional right to a ‘life-sustaining climate system,’ a precedent set by Juliana. A concurrent opinion by Associate Justice Michael D. Wilson affirmed that courts can and will act to protect children’s fundamental rights using the best available climate science, further establishing legal precedent for our youth-led litigation. In that Supreme Court opinion, Justice Wilson cited legal precedent established by OCT and a law review article published by our Senior Litigation Attorney, Andrea Rodgers.
APRIL 2023
In a major victory for our Hawaiʻi youth plaintiffs, Judge Jeffrey P. Crabtree denied the State of Hawaiʻi’s motion to dismiss the case, putting the youth on track for trial. We also advanced to our pre-trial conference in Held v. State of Montana, preparing for the nation’s first-ever constitutional climate trial.
Navahine F. v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation
MAY 2023
In May, eleven law students from ten law schools clerked with Our Children’s Trust for a total of 3,300 hours researching, writing and learning from our 13 attorneys. Each law clerk had the opportunity to use, develop and refine their lawyering skills. This was our largest class of law clerks, and we cannot thank them enough.
Youth climate leaders, child rights movement advocates, and UN Commissioners serving on the Committee on the Rights of the Child attended the 40th Anniversary of Child Rights Connect in Geneva, Switzerland. Kalālapa, a Hawai’ian plaintiff, traveled internationally for the first time to share her story, calling for urgent action to the climate crisis. Her words, alongside those of her peers, will inform on-going advocacy and potential global responses to the challenges being faced by the child rights movement.
JUNE 2023
We began June finalizing our preparations for a historic first-ever climate trial, only to then celebrate the first day of the month with a long-awaited decision from U.S. District Court Judge Aiken, who ruled that the amended complaint filed by the 21 youth in Juliana v. United States could once again proceed to trial. Soon after news of the ruling made waves, several members of U.S. Congress issued statements of support and solidarity with the youth plaintiffs. At trial in Juliana, the youth plaintiffs will have the opportunity to testify in court, after which Judge Aiken will rule whether the U.S. energy system violates the youth’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, property, and equal protection of the laws.
Our Children’s Trust won for the second time at the Montana Supreme Court when it denied the state’s effort to derail the case first in May and then again, a week before the trial was to commence.
Then, from June 12 to 20, the world watched as the first-ever constitutional climate trial in U.S. history commenced in Helena, Montana. In Held v. State of Montana, 16 Montana youth turned to the courts to protect their equal rights to a healthy environment, life, dignity, and freedom, suing the State of Montana to protect their state constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment” as well as air, waters, wildlife and public lands that are threatened by drought, heat, fires, smoke, and floods. The youth also asked the court to enforce their rights to life, liberty, health safety, individual dignity, and equality under the Montana Constitution, and declare that Montana's fossil fuel energy policies and actions violate the young people’s state constitutional rights.
Our legal team – alongside co-counsel from the Western Environmental Law Center and McGarvey Law presented a powerful case to Judge Kathy Seeley, while Montanans watched inside the courtroom and people across the state and around the world watched online. The plaintiffs took the stand to tell the court how they have each been harmed by the actions of their own government. Ten experts – all the very best in their fields – presented clear and precise evidence that documented the anthropogenic roots of the climate crisis, exact causes and impacts stemming from Montana’s perpetuation of a fossil fuel-based energy system, and how these harms devastate Montana’s natural resources and the health of its children. Testimony also laid bare the scientific evidence of how the climate crisis harms young Montanans, the macro and micro economic impacts of continuing “business as usual,” and the corresponding dramatic benefits of already feasible transitions to renewable energy.
The state of Montana called very few witnesses, deciding at the last minute not to call their primary expert witness on climate science (who was expected to present a case rooted in climate denialism), and instead presented limited evidence arguing a lack of responsibility and claims of minimal climate impact due to state’s actions.
Every day, when our youth plaintiffs walked up the hill to court, they were greeted and cheered on by a corridor of supporters who also packed the courtroom each day. Over 20 organizations – climate, environmental, human rights, social justice, and youth – from across the state are our steadfast partners, raising awareness, hosting events, and raising funds. Every day, the media filed in and filled the jury box; their stories reached over 12 million viewers during June. Cameras filled the courtroom, and the proceedings were broadcast around the globe. This was all thanks to our advocacy with the court that we had the opportunity to record history in the making.
Images from the historic Held v. State of Montana trial
Soon after the conclusion of trial in Montana, People vs. Fossil Fuels — a coalition of 1,200+ climate justice, Indigenous, Black, Latino, social justice, economic justice, progressive, youth, faith, and other organizations — delivered a petition to the U.S. Department of Justice. Representing 255+ organizational sponsors and 50,500+ individuals, the petitioners demanded that the U.S. Department of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland end their opposition to Juliana proceeding to trial. John Beard Jr., Founder, President and Executive Director of Port Arthur Community Action Network, and Zanagee Artis, Founder and Executive Director of Zero Hour delivered the petition on behalf of the coalition.
Lastly, 24 young people — representing six U.S. states and six Canadian provinces — together with Our Children’s Trust and Oxfam, submitted an Amicus Brief to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea. This is the first international court to determine what governments are required to do to tackle the climate emergency, and our brief emphasized how important it is for the Tribunal to rely on the best available science when interpreting the governments’ obligations.
JULY 2023
We began July by submitting our 141-page Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law to Judge Seeley for consideration in Held v. State of Montana. She ruled on August 14.
Beginning in late June and continuing into July, the U.S. Department of Justice filed several motions to have the Juliana case dismissed or delayed from trial once again. In solidarity, young people from across the United States joined Juliana youth plaintiffs in urging Congress to protect their constitutional rights and recognize the disproportionate harms of the climate crisis on their generation. We joined youth meeting days co-hosted by the Rachel Carson Council, Schools for Climate Action, and Zero Hour. Simultaneously, U.S. Senator Merkley and Congresswomen Schakowsky and Jayapal reintroduced the Children’s Fundamental Rights and Climate Recovery resolution with 97 U.S. Congressional supporters and 150 organizational endorsers (S.Con.Res.13,H.Con.Res.56) to recognize children’s fundamental rights and the need for climate recovery planning. We are awaiting a date for oral arguments to be set in 2024.
Five young people from four universities served a critical role as our government affairs interns throughout the summer, with some joining us at Capitol Hill for in-person meetings with congressional offices.
Juliana v. United States
AUGUST 2023
Our Children’s Trust attorneys for the 14 youth plaintiffs in the constitutional climate case Navahine F. v. Hawai‘i Department of Transportation (HDOT) secured newly scheduled dates for trial. The second-ever constitutional climate trial in U.S. history, again brought by young people represented by Our Children’s Trust and local co-counsel Earthjustice, will commence in Honolulu from June 24 to July 12, 2024.
We filed an Amicus brief with the United States District Court for the District of Alaska in support of the plaintiffs in Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic v. Bureau of Land Management and Center for Biological Diversity v. Bureau of Land Management. Our analysis incorporates the best available climate science, which demonstrates that continuing fossil fuel emissions resulting from the approval of the Willow Project critically harms and endangers the lives, health, and safety of children.
And on August 14, for the first time in United States history, a court ruled on the merits of Held v. State of Montana, that the government violated the constitutional rights of children through laws and actions that promote fossil fuels, ignore climate change, and disproportionately imperil young people.
Held v. State of Montana
SEPTEMBER 2023
In September, we launched the first article in a 10-part series with Open Global Rights, an independent platform that is housed at and supported by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and the Future of Rights Program at New York University School of Law. The series, “Overturning 1.5°C: Calling for the Science Turn in Rights-Based Climate Litigation” is written in collaboration with climate experts, litigators, scholars, and leaders around the globe to inform and educate the public on the fallacy of 1.5°C as a “safe” benchmark to cease global warming and prevent further human-induced climate change tragedies.
The series explores how heating up to, and remaining at, the Paris target of 1.5°C violates the most basic of human rights, leaving billions in the crosshairs of climate disaster. It further makes a clarion call for overturning 1.5°C as the proxy legal standard for climate advocacy and, instead, urgently initiating a corrective turn to science.
We continued to make legal headway in our Utah case–with the help of Deiss Law, our co-counsel in Natalie R. v. State of Utah, the seven youth plaintiffs submitted their opening brief to the Utah Supreme Court, explaining why the young Utahan’s constitutional climate case for breathable air and climate justice in the state should proceed to trial. In the brief, the youth show that Utah laws that require the state to maximize fossil fuel development are causing the state’s climate and air quality crises, harming the health and safety of the youth, and taking years off their lives in violation of their rights to life and liberty under Utah's Constitution.
Rikki Held, the lead plaintiff in Held v. State of Montana, was listed in TIME100 NEXT List for her leadership role in the youth-led climate lawsuit and for her determination to protect the rights of children and youth for present and future generations.
OCTOBER 2023
The Montana Supreme Court officially accepted the Held case for appeal. We expect to argue the case before the Supreme Court in spring 2024.
The outpouring of support that our Utah youth plaintiffs received from our community was felt when 37 legal scholars from 25 law schools, and several organizations, including human rights advocates, children’s rights supporters, and medical experts and pediatricians filed amicus briefs backing their case.
In October, Our Children’s Trust was honored with the 2023 Climate Courage Award from the Climate Change Leadership Institute.”
Julia Olson, Executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel, received the Repairer Excellence Award from the International Center for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of MultiGenerational Legacies of Trauma (ICMGLT) “for founding Our Children’s Trust, trailblazing an inspiring path to victory and hope in the first U.S. children’s constitutional climate trial.”
Claudia, youth plaintiff in Layla H. v. Commonwealth of Virginia, accepting award on behalf of Julia Olson.
NOVEMBER 2023
(Left to right): Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, Human Rights Specialist; Claudia, Virginia youth plaintiff; Dr. Yael Danieli, ICMGLT Founder and Executive Director; Elizabeth Dickinson, Chief Development Officer; and John Mackin, Press Director
We released a bibliography of curated scholarly articles that explain the importance of reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations from current levels, which are upwards of 420 parts per million to (ppm) to below 350 ppm, the universally accepted threshold for sustaining life on earth, no later than 2100 to reverse catastrophic climate change and protect fundamental human rights.
Julia Olson was named one of the world’s most influential leaders driving climate action in the TIME 100Climate list and the 16 youth plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana were named among the top global leaders working to address climate change in Business Insider’s second-annual Climate Action 30 list.
DECEMBER 2023
We submitted an Amicus brief to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) in collaboration with the University Network for Human Rights and Defense Ambiental del Noroeste in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Our brief responds to the request for an advisory opinion by the governments of Colombia and Chile in January 2023, which asked the Court to clarify the scope of countries’ obligations to address the climate emergency’s impact on persons, nature, and survival on Earth. On behalf of 21 youth and 18 pediatric associations representing over one million medical professionals, our brief outlines the special obligations countries must undertake to address the climate emergency according to international human rights standards.
On December 10th, the 75th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, Our Children’s Trust filed a federal constitutional climate lawsuit on behalf of 18 children in California. The young plaintiffs in Genesis B. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency are increasingly suffering from climate harms that are growing in the Western U.S., including loss of homes from wildfires, damage from floods, and evacuations from life-threatening climate change-induced incidents. In the lawsuit, the young plaintiffs argue that for decades, the EPA has intentionally allowed life-threatening climate pollution to be emitted by the fossil fuel sources of greenhouse gases it regulates, despite knowing the harm it causes to children’s health and welfare, as well as discriminating against them as children by devaluing their lives and their future when it decides whether and how much climate pollution to allow.
The 18 children are asking the federal court to hold a trial, weigh the evidence, and ultimately issue a declaratory judgment that the EPA has violated their fundamental constitutional rights to life and equal protection of the law.
Two days after the filing of this new case, Held v. State of Montana youth plaintiff Claire accepted the TIME Earth Award on behalf of her 16 fellow plaintiffs for securing a major legal victory in their climate case earlier this year. Watch the video below as Claire delivers a heartfelt and inspirational speech at the award ceremony in New York City.
The Federal Court of Appeals in Canada unanimously ruled in favor of the 15 youth plaintiffs in our constitutional climate lawsuit La Rose v. His Majesty the King, permitting them to proceed to trial. In their decision, the justices noted that, “Climate change is having a dramatic, rapidly unfolding effect on all Canadians and on northern and Indigenous communities in particular.” The justices quoted the Supreme Court of Canada, which recognized that climate change has had a ‘particularly serious effect’ on Indigenous peoples and Indigenous territories, ‘threatening the ability of Indigenous communities in Canada to sustain themselves and maintain their traditional ways of life.’ The justices noted that global change is not a distant problem, but current and consequential, and that “it is also beyond doubt that the burden of addressing the consequences will disproportionately affect Canadian youth.”
CONCLUSION
At Our Children’s Trust, the best available climate science is at the forefront of everything that we do – it's what builds our groundbreaking youth-led climate litigation. Our team is not only committed to providing courts and judges with the best available climate science, but educating the public, including lawyers, legislators, journalists, teachers, families, and businesses about the resources available on how to prevent further human-induced climate change tragedies.
By shifting the power to youth, providing them with legal and scientific expertise, and helping them to voice their stories in court, the media, and the world stage, they are holding governments accountable and protecting their rights and the rights of future generations to a safe climate. The victories and accomplishments in 2023 are catalysts for what we will accomplish together in 2024 - let’s #PowerForwardTogether!