…States and corporations – actors that cause the greatest impacts on the environment – have not been advocates for the best interests of affected communities. Too often powerful interests have succeeded in deregulating harmful and dangerous activities, advocating for weak, industry-driven voluntary measures while indemnifying responsible companies....Resource extraction deals, plantations concessions, and dam building contracts continue to be vehicles of profit maximisation with insufficient regard for long-term social and ecological impacts.

Against this backdrop, communities all over the world are taking charge through legal action, becoming themselves the parties that seek direct accountability from agents and decision-makers that have failed them and their environment. Given the inherent difficulty of negotiating our way to environmental justice and the unwillingness of states to enact binding measures, it appears that novel legal approaches by communities are crucial drivers of environmental change at present…