Laura Burgers
Laura Burgers works as an assistant professor at ACT, the Amsterdam Centre for Transformative Private Law (formerly: Centre for the Study of European Contract Law). In 2020, she defended her PhD thesis concerning the role of the judiciary when confronted climate change litigation in European private law. Is it democratically legitimate for the judiciary in European private law to engage in law-making on climate change or should that rather be left to politics? The thesis is a Habermasian reconstruction of this question, leading to a critique to the deliberative democracy constrained within a constitutional nation state, and showcasing how climate change litigation brings to the fore groups who fall outside the polis of nation states but who are heavily affected by climate change: people in other nations, future generations, and many non-humans such as animals, plants and ecosystems. Burgers is one of the experts on the rights of nature in the UN Network Harmony With Nature. In 2022, she received a Rubicon grant to research future generations and rights of nature in climate change litigation from the global south.
Supervisors: Professor doctor Chantal Mak and Professor doctor Marija Bartl
Supervisors: Professor doctor Chantal Mak and Professor doctor Marija Bartl
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Papers by Laura Burgers
This annotation analyses the appellate court’s decision step by step, pointing out where it differs from the lower court’s decision and engaging with the various critiques. The Court of Appeal directly applies Articles 2 (right to life) and 8 (right to family life) of the ECHR, finds that these rights cover climate change related situations, and on the basis of Dutch civil procedure determines that 25% reduction is the factual minimum to prevent ECHR violations. Although parts of the decision could have been motivated in more detail, the authors conclude that the Court applied the law correctly and that neither the separation of powers, nor the political question doctrine were infringed.
Freely accessable version available on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3314008
This annotation analyses the appellate court’s decision step by step, pointing out where it differs from the lower court’s decision and engaging with the various critiques. The Court of Appeal directly applies Articles 2 (right to life) and 8 (right to family life) of the ECHR, finds that these rights cover climate change related situations, and on the basis of Dutch civil procedure determines that 25% reduction is the factual minimum to prevent ECHR violations. Although parts of the decision could have been motivated in more detail, the authors conclude that the Court applied the law correctly and that neither the separation of powers, nor the political question doctrine were infringed.
Freely accessable version available on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3314008