Climate change litigation against private entities: a liability in search of… a cause of action

This paper explores the possibility of taking legal action against private entities to enforce their climate responsibility under current positive law (international, European, and domestic), on the assumption that the cause of action in this case is not the same as that applicable to states. While acknowledging that a series of principles can be inferred from all the regulatory systems under investigation, the claimed necessity that, for the purposes of private individual liability, a specific rule must have been violated, nevertheless leads to a negative conclusion.