Rule of Law Against the State? Opportunities and Limits of Mobilization of the Rule of Law Framework By Climate Activists on Trial for Civil Disobedience

In this talk I will discuss how climate activists who are prosecuted for civil disobedience mobilize the discourse of rule of law to defend themselves in the courts and to put symbolically the state on trial for undermining the rule of law. I show how the mobilization of the liberal framework and discourse of rule of law highlights a conflicted space which climate activists must navigate in liberal democracies that are increasingly sliding into authoritarian states that undermine the rule of law through repression of climate civil disobedience: on the one hand, climate activists can challenge the state in its own political and legal terrain of criminal courts, exposing the contradictions of state repression and criminalization of law breaking (civil disobedience) which risks eroding the rule of law. On the other hand, by mobilizing the framework and discourse of rule of law, climate activists inevitably subject themselves to a liberal governmentality which they seek to challenge and transgress.