Civil lawsuits study reveals effectiveness of environment-focused litigation in US, but also large inequalities

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A sweeping study of three decades of lawsuits has revealed both the effectiveness but also the underuse of civil litigation to enforce environmental protections.

An examination of more than 25,000 civil suits and 4,000 federal judicial decisions between 1988 and 2022 showed that while litigation is an important means of enforcing environmental laws, environmental groups that serve as plaintiffs focus heavily on specific, place-based conservation-related conflicts in particular geographic regions—more than issues with broader implications for human health, like clean drinking water, toxic pollution and wastewater treatment.

The study was published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

Christopher Rea, an assistant professor of sociology and international and public affairs at Brown University who led the study, said that pro-regulatory plaintiffs filing environment-focused civil lawsuits were often successful, with a higher rate of success than anti-regulatory ones.

"An important finding is that the courts really matter, and that environmental nonprofits and the federal government have pretty effectively used them to enforce environmental law," Rea said.

But the researchers also found that environmental nonprofit organizations have focused their energy overwhelmingly on land conservation in western states—not on lawsuits focused on environmental issues in the eastern portions of the country, where population density is higher.

"These organizations have basically ignored what's happening east of the Rockies, which is where most people in the U.S. live and is also where most legacy pollution is," said Rea, who is affiliated with the Climate Solutions Lab at Brown's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

"This means that environmental groups are focusing on a specific set of concerns that is not reflective of the broader set of concerns that many people face in their day-to-day lives."

Nearly 40% of the cases analyzed in the study were located in 10 of the 90 federal court districts, illustrating the geographical inequality in environment-focused litigation.

"This lack of legal attention to regions east of the Rocky Mountains, many with long industrial histories like the Midwest, South and East Coast… and where the unevenly distributed threats of toxic exposure are generally higher, means that the federal government faces less legal pressure to robustly enforce anti-pollution laws in these places," the study stated.

Rea said the study was the most comprehensive review of environmental litigation to date and included various types of cases, including those filed by and against the federal government, environmental non-governmental and movement organizations, industry groups and corporations.

The researchers found that environmental lawsuits comprised less than 1% of all federal civil litigation in the U.S. between 1988 and 2022. But it's important to understand patterns of environmental legal conflict, which is a small but critical element of environmental policymaking and enforcement, Rea said.

The group's research also found evidence against the claim that environmental groups are "mucking up the court with frivolous lawsuits," Rea added. The cases analyzed were driven in about equal share by environmental organizations, the federal government, corporations and trade associations.

In addition to Rea, study co-authors include Nikloas E. Merten and Casey J. Rife, who conducted research while enrolled at Ohio State University.

More information: Christopher M. Rea et al, Outcomes and policy focus of environmental litigation in the United States, Nature Sustainability (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01456-x

Journal information: Nature Sustainability

Provided by Brown University