CORPORATE CIVIL LIABILITY FOR TRANSBOUNDARY CLIMATE DAMAGE: JURISDICTION, COMPETENCE, AND APPLICABLE LAW FROM A BRAZILIAN LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Climate change has been progressively intensifying cumulative and transboundary events, thus giving rise to the debate on the civil liability of corporations that emit greenhouse gases. This study seeks to investigate whether there are solutions and instruments in the Brazilian legal system that enable the civil liability of national or international corporations for transboundary climate damage, with emphasis on the obstacles faced in jurisdiction, competence, and which law is applicable, producing the following question that will guide this work: how can the Brazilian legal system hold corporations liable, considering that climate damage is diffuse, multifactorial, and transboundary? And due to the climate crisis being an urgent issue in the current scenario, as well as the existence of developments in international climate litigation demonstrating the demand for this study, the research will use an exploratory qualitative research methodology, since a bibliographic and documentary examination will be carried out. However, given the basis in objective environmental civil liability, as in the theory of integral risk, the complexity in establishing the causal link between the polluting agent and the specific climatic event, as well as the jurisdiction in disputes involving transboundary climate damage and the lack of better rules in private international law to designate which law to apply to global damages, it is clear that holding corporations liable for climate damage in Brazil will be feasible. This requires a progressive legal interpretation, based on the constantly developing science of climate attribution, and the recognition of environmental protection as a fundamental right, in the same way that there is harmonization between national and international norms.