Young people involved in the International Court of Justice case celebrate a win for climate justice and their communities, propelled by the leadership of Indigenous and Pacific youth. Photo credit: World’s Youth for Climate Justice

Youth throughout the globe are taking their climate justice concerns to the streets and to the courts. In July 2025, Indigenous and Pacific youth from Pacific Island nations made climate justice history in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s top court. These young people valiantly campaigned for the ICJ to evaluate states’ legal obligation to protect environments and people from greenhouse gas emissions and corporate polluters. In a landmark decision, the ICJ ruled that states are in fact legally obligated to enact climate mitigation measures and to take due diligence to reduce environmental harm, as well as uphold human rights. While Pacific Islander youth have been organizing and working hard at the international level, many US-based youth are engaged in parallel actions, demonstrating the power of young people and the importance of their frontline experiences for informing pathmaking legal battles.

“Our Children’s Trust” is the name of the US advocacy law firm founded in 2010 that has been emboldening youth to legally challenge state and federal governments in response to their unconstitutional climate policies. The ambitious lawsuits already represented by the firm are the first of their kind in US history. The efforts of Our Children’s Trust began with the case of Juliana v. United States (2015), which is recognized as the first major constitutional climate lawsuit brought by youth plaintiffs against a federal government. Despite ultimately being dismissed, it set a groundbreaking precedent, creating conditions for Montana youth to be the first to take their state constitutional climate lawsuit to trial in 2023 with the case of Held v. State of Montana. Sixteen Montana youth plaintiffs successfully sued their state government on the grounds that the state’s fossil fuel energy policies violated their explicit constitutional rights to a “clean and healthful environment.”

This series of modern-day David versus Goliath legal battles lay the foundations for the case of Lighthiser v. Trump. The suit bears the name of the 19-year-old courageous lead plaintiff, Eva Lighthiser, who is taking legal action against the Trump administration’s unconstitutional energy policies. Lighthiser, alongside 21 other youth plaintiffs from around the nation, are arguing that Trump’s energy-related executive orders are in direct violation of their generation’s Fifth Amendment rights to life and liberty, as well as good health. The three executive orders being contested attempt to reverse actions that pose an “undue burden” on the country’s energy industry, provide energy corporations access to federally-owned energy sources, and explicitly prioritize the production of coal-fired electricity. The president’s blatant undermining of climate change mitigation efforts is dangerous. These are effectively orders to safeguard and grow fossil fuel extraction, rather than supporting the health and wellbeing of people living in the United States and communities globally.

The overwhelming pushback received from Lighthiser v. Trump is indicative of the unprogressive nature of our current legal system. The attorney representing the US government was able to sway the judge to dismiss this case by simply arguing that there has been no precedent set before a court blocking a federal policy initiative. This same federal judge wrote the whole lawsuit off as an “unworkable request” and stated that ruling to block these three executive orders would unreasonably require the court to “monitor an untold number of federal agency actions to determine whether they contravene its injunction.” This ruling claims to not want to inconvenience the court further with more work down the line; however, the legal system inherently holds this responsibility. Our legal system’s integrity comes into question the minute that enforcement of the law starts to be seen as unreasonable.

While the courts dismissed Lighthiser v. Trump in October 2025, an appeal was filed and the fight rages on. On International Human Rights Day, Montana youth activists announced that they are taking their petition to the Montana Supreme Court in Held v. State of Montana II. Whatever the ultimate verdict may be, the visibility and growth of these youth-led climate cases is a victory in itself. More and more teens and other young people continue to take to the courts with the intention of strengthening their generation’s credibility and legal recognition. Now, with many examples to point to, state and federal attorneys will no longer be able to argue that these climate cases are so unprecedented. Taking a broader view, including petitions in the ICJ and the leadership of Indigenous and Pacific youth in the Global South, it is clear that while climate collapse and injustice require global attention, so too does the legal activism of young people.