Legal notice from Pakistani farmers to German carbon majors: Implications for transnational climate litigation in South Asia

Abstract

Climate litigation is an emerging trend in the Global South. The majority of cases are rights-based, seeking to hold national governments accountable to address climate-related harm. However, Pakistan has initiated proceedings for its first cross-border climate lawsuit against companies situated in the Global North. This development has significant implications within the South Asian context, particularly the shifting trend of climate justice claims.

Climate litigation ¹ is an emerging trend in the Global South. The majority of cases are rights-based, seeking to hold national governments accountable to address climate-related harm. ² However, Pakistan has initiated proceedings for its first cross-border climate lawsuit against companies situated in the Global North. This development has significant implications within the South Asian context, particularly the shifting trend of climate justice claims.

On 28th October, 43 farmers from the Sindh region initiated a legal notice against German polluters for the climate-induced floods of 2022. They plan to sue the energy firm RWE and the cement producer Heidelberg, which are among Germany's most polluting carbon majors. ³ RWE and Heidelberg are responsible for 0.68% and 0.12% of global industrial GHG emissions, respectively. ⁴

The Climate Risk Index analyses who suffer most from extreme weather events in a particular year, as well as over the preceding 30 years. It aims to inform policymakers of urgent action to address the negative impacts of climate-induced extreme weather events across different regions worldwide. ⁵ In 2022, Pakistan was the most affected country due to catastrophic floods. ⁶ This was described as the most severe flooding incident the country has ever encountered. It affected approximately 33 million people, resulting in more than 1700 fatalities. ⁷ Sindh was one of the most affected regions. ⁸

The Post-Disaster Needs Assessment report estimates that Sindh sustained losses and damages of around USD 11,376 million and 9,068 million, respectively. ⁹ According to scientific analysis, Pakistan experienced rainfall exceeding 190% of the seasonal average in 2022, resulting in saturated flood basins and overflowing rivers. Therefore, the devastating floods were the inevitable consequence of the excessive rainfall that occurred in 2022. ¹⁰ The immediate reaction of the UN and concerned authorities targeted climate change as the direct cause of such intensified and frequent extreme weather events. ¹¹

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its sixth Assessment Report clarifies that anthropogenic GHG emissions are affecting the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in many regions of the world. ¹² Scholars have noted that attribution science faces significant challenges in establishing a direct causal link between excessive rainfall and flood occurrence. Analysing floods depends on multiple factors, including hydrological processes, river and coastal management, etc. ¹³

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), being the judicial organ of the UN, is authorised to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it. ¹⁴ The ICJ delivered its long-anticipated advisory opinion in July 2025 and reinforced the importance of the IPCC reports as ‘the best available science’ in determining causation and apportioning reparations in climate litigation. ¹⁵ Having said this, the Court did not answer the factual questions regarding the attribution of causation and left them to be decided on a case-by-case basis in the respective litigations. ¹⁶ Experts consider the approach of ignoring such core but controversial debates while deciding legal questions as an example of judicial restraint. ¹⁷ Despite its advisory nature, the ICJ's climate opinion aims to guide the application of attribution science and reshape the growth of climate litigation in the coming days. ¹⁸

Climate litigation initiated by farmers is not unprecedented in Pakistan. In 2015, a farmer named Asghar Leghari filed a petition to the Lahore High Court, claiming that the government's inadequate response to address the challenges of climate change violated his fundamental constitutional rights. The Court directed the concerned authority to form a joint expert-government Climate Change Commission. This Commission is responsible for ensuring the protection of the fundamental rights of those affected by climate change. ¹⁹

However, the Leghari case is a classic example of rights-based climate litigation ²⁰ enforcing national commitments to international treaties such as the Paris Agreement. ²¹ The recent legal correspondence between Pakistani farmers and German corporate giants differs from the Leghari case in several respects. First, it is a legal notice against the Global North corporations, not the national government. It is a cross-border climate litigation. Second, the legal notice addresses personal and community property damage resulting from climate-induced extreme weather events, such as floods. Such lawsuits against corporations seeking to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change fall into the category of corporate climate litigation. ²² LLIUYA v. RWE is the long-awaited corporate accountability litigation, a subset within the broader category of corporate climate litigation. ²³ In this case, a Peruvian farmer filed a claim for reparations against the German corporation RWE for the increased flood risk from melting glaciers. The Court confirmed that, in principle, a carbon major can be held liable for climate-related damages across borders. ²⁴

According to Peel and Lin, climate litigation is primarily a local phenomenon due to inadequate enforcement mechanisms under the Paris Agreement and to the complexities associated with international law in climate cases across jurisdictions. However, from a definitional perspective, transnational climate litigation requires the involvement of either a foreign petitioner or a respondent, considering the jurisdiction of the concerned court. ²⁵ Therefore, the Pakistani farmers’ recent legal notice marks the initiation of transnational climate litigation against transnational corporations. Moreover, this would be the first-ever climate litigation involving the factual question of apportionment of reparations among two respondents following the ICJ advisory opinion. This case has the potential to unravel a series of factual questions regarding the appreciation of scientific and legal evidence that have remained unresolved to date.

Over the past few years, there has been a surge in climate lawsuits against the fossil-fuel companies. ²⁶ As of March 2025, there are more than 30 cases worldwide that make monetary claims similar to the LLIUYA v. RWE case. ²⁷ For example, in 2024, a Belgian farmer, Falys, sued the French company TotalEnergies for both material and non-material harm resulting from climate-induced extreme weather events. ²⁸ In December 2021, Typhoon Rai hit the Philippines, causing the deaths of over 400 people and the displacement of 3.2 million people. In October 2025, the typhoon survivors declared their plan to sue Shell, a UK-based company. ²⁹ Earlier in 2022, four residents from an Indonesian island affected by rising sea levels lodged a civil claim for compensation against the Swedish cement producer Holcim. ³⁰ Such instances of cross-border climate litigation follow the groundbreaking precedent established in LLIUYA v. RWE. Pakistan's recent legal process is also built on this German case.

Other South Asian countries may take inspiration from Pakistani farmers’ actions regarding climate reparations claim for losses. Irrespective of its success, the farmers’ claim is a landmark step in shaping the trends of transnational climate litigation in this region. Let's see how it progresses in future.