The Human and Fundamental Rights Working Group and the Constitutional Law and Politics Working Group host a work-in-progress event featuring visiting researcher, Sven Siebrecht.
In the past years, climate advocates have increasingly framed the climate crisis as an issue of rights. By strategically leveraging the institutional framework for the protection of individual rights in liberal democracies, rights-based climate litigation has set out to overcome deficient regulatory responses to the climate crisis—with considerable success. At the same time, however, it has been accused of provoking illegitimate overreaches of the judiciary. To prevent a blurring of the separation of powers, critics say climate action should remain in the sphere of politics. Yet, despite abundant separation-of-powers critiques of climate litigation, it remains unclear where the boundaries of judicial authority lie in the case of climate change. The article scrutinizes the relevant body of case law through the lens of a normative model of the separation of powers, asking precisely this question. In doing so, it also contributes to a functional theory of the separation of powers for the 21st century.
About the speaker:
Sven Siebrecht is a visiting PhD researcher affiliated with Leuphana University Lüneburg and Humboldt University of Berlin. He holds law degrees from Georg August University of Göttingen (2021) and Harvard Law School (2024). In his doctoral project, Sven scrutinizes the multi-level legal framework of the European Union’s external environmental and climate change policy.
A (confidential) paper draft will be circulated in advance to registered participants. All interested fellows, PhD researchers, professors and visiting academics are invited to participate.