Barriers to International Climate Justice for Children

This project explores how international legal systems fail children seeking climate justice, and calls for child-friendly admissibility criteria to improve access to justice in global courts.

This project investigates the barriers children face when seeking climate justice through international legal systems. Despite high-profile cases—such as the 2019 UN complaint against five states and the 2024 European Court of Human Rights case involving 33 countries—children’s claims have been dismissed on admissibility grounds. These decisions expose systemic flaws in international justice mechanisms, which apply adult-centric criteria to child-led actions. Focusing on 200 submissions to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (2014–2024), the project will analyse how admissibility standards are applied and whether they reflect children’s rights and capacities.

Through legal analysis and a multi-stakeholder workshop, it will explore whether child-specific criteria are needed to ensure meaningful access to justice. The project also contributes to debates on decolonising law and collective rights, and will submit findings to the Committee’s General Comment No.27 consultation, advocating for more inclusive and child-friendly legal processes at the international level.