Standing requirements before the European Court of Human Rights pose significant hurdles for plaintiffs in climate litigation, exposing deep tensions between judicial restraint and legal accountability, redress for vulnerable groups and discrete access to justice. In KlimaSeniorinnen, the Court advanced an evolutive interpretation of victim status and legal representation standards ‘in the light of conditions in contemporary society’, drawing extensively on the international legal framework through the principle of systemic integration. The key doctrinal takeaway is the articulation of justiciable minimum standards of due diligence for climate mitigation under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, situated at the intersection of nearly unattainable individual victimhood and a substantive evolution of locus standi for demonstrably affected vulnerable groups. Although the Court’s reasoning strains several doctrinal conundrums – particularly regarding the interplay between individual victim status and legal representation – it ultimately constitutes a principled increment of legal accountability, commensurate with the necessities brought forward by the prospect of climate collapse.

Which international obligations are characterised as obligations owed erga omnes or erga omnes partes is today a crucial question for the enforcement of international law, particularly through adjudication before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ, however, has not given sufficiently clear indication as to how it understands and identifies obligations erga omnes and erga omnes partes. This lack of clarity and consistency permits varied approaches to the articulation of such obligations, ultimately leaving uncertain the enforceability, through adjudication and otherwise, of a wide variety of obligations.

In Nworika v Ononeze-Madu, the Nigerian Supreme Court upheld the decision of the lower court, denying the appellant standing to challenge the decision of the Imo State government. This highlighted the position of Nigerian courts on the rule of locus standi, which denies access to justice for many Nigerians who seek a court order to declare a law unconstitutional or to challenge the actions of the government or its agencies. This article examines the context of the application of the rule of locus standi before Nigerian courts and argues that the decision of the Supreme Court in Adesanya v President of Nigeria, which is the classic authority on the strict rule of locus standi in Nigeria, is outdated in the context of contemporary human rights development and that Nigerian courts can learn from the Indian courts that have discarded the strict application of the rule of locus standi through judicial activism.

The importance and contribution of derivative litigation to the effectiveness and credibility of a jurisdiction's corporate governance system is indisputable. There is a positive correlation between good corporate governance practices, which include shareholders’ rights, and investors’ return on their investments. On the one hand, an overly pro-shareholder derivative scheme is vulnerable to abuse and results in unnecessary interference with company management. This may, in turn, discourage directors from entrepreneurial risk-taking and undermine enterprise efficiency. On the other hand, a complex and ineffective system of derivative litigation protects errant directors and decreases investor confidence. This article is a critical assessment of Zimbabwe's recently adopted statutory derivative remedy. The analysis focuses on five locus standi-related aspects of the new statutory derivative regime. The article highlights some major weaknesses within Zimbabwe's statutory remedy and proposes pertinent legislative amendments.

In England, Parliament introduced the ‘necessary interest rule’ through the enactment of section 115 of the Charities Act 2011 (England and Wales), allowing ‘any person interested’ in a charitable trust to initiate charity proceedings against defaulting trustees in their administration of charitable assets. Nevertheless, insufficient attention has been paid to this rule despite it being initially enacted in 1853. Parliament has refrained from clearly defining the rule, and the courts have long been grappling with its meaning in determining whether a person is eligible to sue. This paper studies the necessary interest rule by exploring the way in which the courts have interpreted it and the uncertainties surrounding its operation. It is shown that, in the context of charitable trusts, the concern of securing the due administration and execution of the trust lies at the heart of the rule. The final section of this paper discusses the significant theoretical implications of the necessary interest rule. It considers the beneficiary-enforcer debate concerning the conceptual nature of express trusts and highlights the insights that analysis of the rule can provide into this debate.

A number of states have in recent years sought to invoke the responsibility of other states for breaches of their international obligations erga omnes. Their contention is that these obligations are not owed to them bilaterally but in the collective interest, whether as states parties to multilateral treaties or as members of the international community as a whole. This growing interest in the invocation of responsibility for breaches of obligations erga omnes is discussed primarily in relation to the International Law Commission’s Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. The Articles being a statement of principle, and indeed, a progressive development of the law on the issue, attention must also be paid to the decisions and dicta of the International Court of Justice. Of particular interest, and the focus of this article, is the question of a state’s standing to institute proceedings before the Court to invoke responsibility for the breach of an obligation erga omnes even in the absence of any injury on its part. The most recent manifestation of this position is The Gambia’s institution in 2019 of proceedings against Myanmar, solely on the basis that all states parties to the Genocide Convention have a legal interest in compliance with the obligations therein. By scrutinizing the practice of the Court to date, the article examines the limits and consequences of an expansive right of standing for states seeking to enforce obligations erga omnes at the Court.

Private prosecutions have been part of the Nigerian legal system for a long time. In 2015, the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) came into force. The ACJA provides for, inter alia, circumstances in which a person may institute a private prosecution. In this article, relying on jurisprudence emanating from Nigerian courts before the ACJA came into force, the author suggests ways in which Nigerian courts could approach the right to institute a private prosecution under the act. To achieve this objective, the author discusses: the right to institute a private prosecution; locus standi to institute a private prosecution; and measures to prevent abuse of the right to institute a private prosecution.

This article reviews some of the roles environmental lawyers have played in ensuring environmental justice in Bangladesh. It leans on law and social movement theories to explicate the choice (and ensuing success) of litigation as a movement strategy in Bangladesh. The activists successfully moved the courts to read the right to a decent environment into the fundamental right to life, and this has had the far-reaching effect ofconstituting a basis forstanding forthe activists and other civil society organisations. The activists have also sought to introduce emerging international law principles into the jurisprudence of the courts. These achievements notwithstanding, the paper notes that litigation is not a sustainable way to institute enduring environmental protection in any jurisdiction and recommends the utilisation of the reputation and recognition gained through litigation to deploy or encourage more sustainable strategies.

The challenges for the system of judicial protection of the EU spring from two main developments: first, the enlargement of the EU, which inevitably affects all institutions of the Union, most notably their organisational structure and modus operandi, second, the deepening and widening of the areas falling within the scope of competences of the EU. Article I-28 Draft Constitution states that the Court of Justice of the EU shall include the ECJ, the High Court and specialised courts. These courts, together with the national courts of all levels, constitute the intricate nexus offering judicial protection in the EU. The issues that dominated debates on the reform of the system of judicial protection varied from the amendment of Article 230.4 EC on the locus standi of applicants, to the impact of the incorporation of the Charter of Human Rights and to the competences of the ECJ in the areas of the second and third pillar. They all relate to the deepening and widening of the Union through this Draft Constitution.