Climate Change Litigation in Georgia — the Real Picture
Georgia has no separate, specialised court or special procedural track for disputes connected with climate change. Climate litigation here means litigation before the courts of general jurisdiction under the ordinary rules of procedure, where claims are grounded in the instruments of environmental legislation established by the Law of Georgia on Environmental Protection: the rights of citizens, the basic principles of environmental protection, the greenhouse gas emission authorization regime, and the rules for compensating damage caused to the environment. This page explains through which links a climate related dispute can be turned into a court case and where the legal footholds of such a case lie.
It is important to set expectations at the outset. The legal regulation of climate change in Georgia today consists of norms for the emission of greenhouse gases and obligations to reduce them, not of a separate climate statute. The path to success in court therefore runs through the precise application of environmental mechanisms — and it is exactly those mechanisms that we examine in detail below, because a climate claim drafted without them is a claim without a legal basis.
The Citizen's Right to Demand Change of Decisions on Ecologically Dangerous Objects
The most direct link to climate litigation is written into the catalogue of citizens' rights. A citizen has the right to demand, through the courts, the change of decisions on the siting, design, construction, reconstruction and exploitation of ecologically dangerous objects. This means that where a decision of the state or an administrative body concerns a major emitting installation — for example, industrial equipment whose fuel cycle is connected with the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — an interested citizen may ask the court to change that decision.
This is reinforced by the other rights of the citizen that serve as footholds in climate disputes: the right to live in an environment harmless and healthy for one's health; the right to enjoy the natural environment; the right to receive complete, objective and timely information on the state of the working and living environment; the right to unite in environmental public organisations and to participate in the consideration and adoption of significant decisions in the field of environmental protection; and the right to receive compensation for damage caused by the non fulfilment of the requirements of the environmental legislation in force. Together these rights form a procedural arsenal that allows climate concerns to be articulated as justiciable claims rather than abstract complaints.
The Basic Principles as Arguments in Court
When planning and carrying out activities, state authorities and all natural and legal persons are obliged to be guided by the basic principles of environmental protection. In climate disputes these principles carry a dual function: they govern the conduct of operators and, at the same time, provide the courts with a means of interpretation when a concrete norm does not directly cover the context of the dispute.
Particularly important for climate litigation are: the risk reduction principle, under which the subject of an activity must take appropriate measures to prevent or reduce the risk of harmful impact on the environment and human health; the polluter pays principle, under which the subject of an activity is obliged to compensate the damage caused to the environment; the restitution principle concerning the restoration of degraded environment; the environmental impact assessment principle; the sustainability principle, which ties the use of natural resources to their protection from irreversible quantitative and qualitative changes; and the accessibility of information principle, which secures access to evidence in climate disputes. Invoking these principles does not replace proving the facts, but it frames the standard of conduct against which the defendant's behaviour is measured.