Isabelle Reinecke

• Grata Fund: opening the doors to public interest litigation

  10th Mar 2016

  Sometimes when it rains, it really buckets down. In just one week in June 2015, courts in two continents delivered landmark public interest victories on two of the defining issues of our time.

  In the Netherlands on 24 June, 900 co-plaintiffs successfully obtained a court order forcing the Dutch government to adopt more stringent policies against climate change.  This historic verdict was the first time a judge had required a State to take action against climate change, and has inspired climate change litigation around the globe.

  Two days later, the US Supreme Court overturned a patchwork of discriminatory state laws and decades of political equivocation to rule that marrying the person you love, regardless of their gender, was a fundamental Constitutional right.

  These cases demonstrate public interest litigation at its finest. Supported by groundswells of community support, these cases broke entrenched political impasses and overturned laws that lagged behind community values.