Milieudefensie v Royal Dutch Shell

Milieudefensie et al v Shell
Court	District court of The Hague
Decided	26 May 2021 (2021-05-26)
ECLI	ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2021:5337
Transcript(s)	ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2021:5339(English)
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Larisa Alwin, Irene Kroft and Michiel Harmsen
Case opinions
The policy, policy intentions and ambitions of Royal Dutch Shell* (hereafter Shell) are incompatible with Shell's reduction obligation. The claimed order to comply with that obligation must be allowed. The order is declared provisionally enforceable. * After losing in the Hague District Court, Shell dropped "Royal Dutch" from its name, and moved its headquarters to London.[15]

Milieudefensie v Royal Dutch Shell (2021) is a human rights law and tort law case heard by the district court of The Hague in the Netherlands in 2021 related to efforts by several NGO's to curtail carbon dioxide emissions by multinational corporations. It was brought by the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth and a group of other NGO's against the oil corporation, Shell plc. In May 2021, the court ordered Shell to reduce its global carbon emissions from its 2019 levels by 45% by 2030, relating not only to the emissions from its operations, but also those from the products it sells. It is considered to be the first major climate change litigation ruling against a corporation.