Affaire du siècle (Case of the Century)
A claim by four associations that led the Paris Administrative Court to recognize in 2021 ecological damage caused by the state and to order its repair.
Ecological damage, written into the French Civil Code in 2016, allows redress to be sought for harm to the environment itself, without an identified human victim. Four associations argued that the state, by exceeding the carbon budgets it had set itself, had caused such damage. The Paris Administrative Court agreed, then ordered that the overshoot be offset by additional reductions, which amounts to redress in kind measured in tonnes. The logic matters directly to insurance: a quantified overshoot becomes a quantified debt, and the same reasoning could target a private emitter bound by a target. The case complements Grande-Synthe, which concerned an injunction rather than redress.
In a judgment of February 3, 2021, the Paris Administrative Court found the state liable for ecological damage arising from its failure to meet its targets; in a judgment of October 14, 2021, it ordered that the overshoot of the first 2015-2018 carbon budget be offset by December 31, 2022 at the latest.
Follow the research
One letter a week. First, the week's underwriting note, when one is published: a dated, argued decision, signed by Paul Bernardski. Then what the observatory published on cyber risk, political risk and insurance. No account, no tracking.
No spam, one-click unsubscribe, no data ever sold.