The Lawyer Who Sued to Reduce Dutch Emissions

Rick Mitchell, Big Law Business

The legal community needs to do more in the fight against climate change, said a lawyer who recently won a court order forcing the Dutch government to strengthen its climate policy.

The lawyer, Roger Cox, led efforts to convince a judge in the District Court of The Hague to rule that the Dutch government must implement policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 25 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.

Cox, a commercial contract law partner at Paulussen Advocaten in Maastricht, Netherlends, sued the Dutch government in late 2014 on behalf of Urgenda Foundation, ...