Using Climate Litigation to Strengthen Advocacy Strategies: The Life After Coal Campaign in South Africa

Activists in South Africa have a long history of using public interest litigation to realize human rights. The use of litigation is nevertheless contested and has produced rich scholarship exploring how its impact can be understood. This practice note will examine the use of litigation by the Life After Coal campaign in Earthlife Africa Johannesburg v. Minister of Environmental Affairs 2017, 2 All SA 519 (GP) (Thabametsi case). With the ultimate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Life After Coal has been campaigning since 2015 to thwart investment in new coal-fired power in South Africa. They successfully used the Thabametsi case to strengthen the use of a variety of other strategies, including protest, media advocacy, economic modelling, and pressure on investors and financial institutions. Although litigation can be painfully slow and resource intensive, in this campaign it was instrumental. Litigation delayed the regulatory approvals required for commercial close. While this was not the purpose of the litigation, its effect was to delay the flow of funds and the start of construction on the project. This in turn created time and space for an advocacy campaign to persuade financiers and investors to withdraw their backing for the project; to undertake the modelling and research required to back up the advocacy campaigns and litigation; and for clean renewable energy to become cheap enough to present a viable alternative pathway to coal. This practice note documents this rare success story and suggests what lessons concerning the use of multiple interweaving strategies it provides for climate activists in the global South.