Environmentalists in South Korea and the wider Asian region are eagerly awaiting a groundbreaking ruling from the Korean Constitutional Court on climate change.
The court recently held its first public hearings to examine whether the government’s actions on climate change violate the rights of its citizens. The hearings were based on four consolidated petitions signed by hundreds of people. Three cases argue that the government’s emissions reduction targets fall significantly short of what is required.
The first lawsuit, filed in March 2020 by 19 members of the campaign group Youth4ClimateAction, alleges that the government’s climate targets and strategy are inadequate and violate their constitutional rights, including the right to life and the pursuit of happiness, due to the severe impacts of climate change on their lives.
The inspiration for this process was a groundbreaking case in the Netherlands where activists successfully forced the government to reduce emissions, triggering a wave of climate litigation around the world.
Legal steps and arguments
IIn 2022, a second lawsuit was filed by 62 young children, including a then 20-week-old fetus nicknamed “Woodpecker.” Their arguments are similar to those in the first case, but apply to future as well as current generations.
Lee Dong-hyun, the mother of Woodpecker, a now one-year-old boy named Choi Hee-woo, and an older child who is eight, told Dialogue Earth that she had been thinking that her eldest child would be almost an adult in 2030, when the government set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent. “That’s a very low goal, and that’s why I decided to join this movement,” she said.
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When we first started filing this case with the Constitutional Court, I thought it would be more of a symbolic matter. But after filing, it went beyond that and led to a real change in Korean society.
Lee Dong-hyun, plaintiff, South Korea
In the third lawsuit, filed by 123 members of civil society organizations, party leaders and ordinary citizens affected by climate change, they claim that the government is violating their rights to life, happiness, liberty, property and a healthy environment.
Activists have long been waiting for these petitions to move forward. Since the first case was filed, the South Korean government and National Assembly have announced a goal of being carbon neutral by 2050, passed a climate change law, and strengthened the country’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to include a target of reducing emissions by 40 percent by 2030.
But for some, these plans are not ambitious enough. The fourth and final case, led by 51 South Korean citizens, focuses on the country’s carbon neutrality plan, released in 2023 – the first of its kind. They argue that it does not properly measure emissions reductions and does not do enough to cut emissions before 2030.
Dissatisfied with the government’s progress, the plaintiffs in all four cases point to the Climate Action Tracker, an independent climate policy watchdog, which has classified the South Korean government’s actions as “highly inadequate” to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.
The regulator is particularly critical of the country’s efforts to increase the share of renewable energy domestically. The majority of South Korea’s emissions come from the energy sector, which remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels for electricity generation.
The plaintiffs also presented evidence from Korea’s National Human Rights Commission, which in 2022 stated that the government has a “fundamental obligation” to protect human rights from the climate crisis and must take active measures to address it.
Public hearings and public testimony
The hearings, held in April and May, were the first public events of their kind not only in South Korea but in the entire region.
During the hearings, 12-year-old Han Jeah, a plaintiff in the baby climate lawsuit, described how climate disasters are already affecting her life; in 2022, her house was flooded during torrential rains, leaving her terrified of a landslide. Because she is not yet of voting age, she said her only option was a court hearing.
“I believe this process is a critical turning point that will shape our future until 2030 and beyond,” Han said. “It is not fair to put the entire burden of solving such a huge problem on future generations. If the future gets even worse, we may have to give up everything we dream of.”
The legal teams in all four cases have been working together since the Constitutional Court merged the petitions. Youn Se-jong, a lawyer for South Korean non-profit organization Plan 1.5 and one of the main legal representatives, noted that there is significant overlap between the lawsuits. All argue that the government’s current approach does not adequately protect their constitutional rights.
Government response and future impact
While the South Korean government acknowledges the challenges of meeting the current NDCs, it insists that the national climate targets are consistent with the constitution. Environment Minister Han Hwa-jin has publicly rejected claims that the targets are inadequate.
The plaintiffs are somewhat optimistic. Youn points out that the Constitutional Court only holds public hearings in cases that it considers important and necessary.
“The fact that the court has chosen the Korean climate case for a public hearing shows that the court takes this case very seriously. During the two hearings, we found the court’s questions to be very detailed and accurate, which shows that the court has considered both the scientific evidence and international and constitutional jurisprudence,” he said.
According to Youn, a decision in favor of the plaintiffs would be the first national success in reducing greenhouse gas emissions outside Europe.
Interest in these lawsuits has increased, with press conferences packed with journalists. Speaking through an interpreter, Lee said, “Of course, we can’t say we’re the only reason society is paying so much attention to this lawsuit or climate change, but people are talking more about the climate crisis in Korea.”
The legal teams hope the court will make a decision soon. The South Korean government has already started talks on its next NDC and the ruling will play a crucial role. A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs could lead to significant changes in national and regional climate policies and reinforce the global trend toward stronger climate action.
“When we started filing this lawsuit with the Constitutional Court, I thought it would be more of a symbolic matter,” Lee said. “But after we filed it, it went beyond that and led to real change in Korean society.”
A broader measure of success will be the extent to which these cases impact climate processes across the Asia-Pacific region.
Taiwan’s Constitutional Court has filed a case over climate change. In Indonesia, 14 people have filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission, claiming the government is violating their constitutional rights by failing to take sufficient measures to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change.
In the Philippines, climate lawsuits were expected after the Human Rights Commission released a landmark report on the human rights obligations of major carbon trading companies, but so far these lawsuits have not been filed.
In neighboring Japan, few climate-related lawsuits have been filed, and none have been successful. The Japanese constitution lacks environmental provisions and the country has no constitutional court. As a result, says Mie Asaoka, a lawyer and president of the Japanese climate NGO Kiko Network, the existing cases mostly relate to the construction of new coal-fired power plants.
She adds that compared to South Korea, Japan has a less active civil society, fewer institutional mechanisms for citizen participation and a weaker judiciary. In addition, Japanese courts are generally reluctant to seek legal advice from other jurisdictions. In addition, political relations between Korea and Japan are currently strained.
Nevertheless, Asaoka stressed that the hearing of these cases before the Korean Constitutional Court would be an “incentive” for Japan’s current and future litigation, given the similarities in both countries’ climate strategies and Japan’s desire not to fall behind.
“The decision will not only have a significant impact on Japanese courts, which still do not view climate change as a human rights issue, but will also accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels in the Asian region,” Asaoka said.
“The government is very aware of the severity of the climate crisis and has opened a forum for public discussion with this case, which is very significant,” a South Korean government spokesman told Dialogue Earth.
“Nevertheless, it cannot be said that our reduction target is unconstitutional because it cannot be proven that it has directly led to a violation of people’s fundamental rights. So it cannot be said that our response to the climate crisis so far has been clearly inadequate or inappropriate. And what is much more important at this point is that we are determined to focus more on implementing measures to combat the climate crisis in order to achieve a better future.”
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons license.
