Emission Impossible? Corporations, Supply Chains, Courts, and Climate Change

The recent enactment of supply chain due diligence regulation in various jurisdictions prompts reflection on how the law might best incentivize corporations to mitigate the impact they have on the environment.1 Beyond these specific pieces of legislation, judicial actors are similarly playing a role in expanding the responsibility of corporations for the harm their operations, products, and services cause to people and the environment, including throughout their supply chains. In this context, the present contribution takes aim at corporate accountability for climate change and appraises a number of recent developments in domestic jurisdictions that evidence a trend toward supply chain emission responsibility. While the focus of this piece is the contribution of domestic courts, an emphasis is placed on the role that informal international law and global norms have played in the reasoning of those decisions or the claims of litigants. In particular, it highlights the persuasive authority that such international law instruments and initiatives have had in this context.