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Climate change is an existential threat. As our planet heats up and climate change advances, children suffer most. Heat stress, poor air quality, extreme weather events, food-insecurity, forced migration of humans and wildlife, and unpredictable infectious disease patterns will continue to intensify and disproportionately impact young people. In an early landmark case, Juliana v. United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit acknowledged that the United States government has known for more than fifty years that the Earth’s climate is changing at a rapid pace and that “fail[ing] to change existing policy may hasten an environmental apocalypse.” Rather than affirming the lower court’s decision to recognize the 21 youth plaintiffs’ right to a sustainable climate and a trial, the Ninth Circuit dismissed their lawsuit. But Juliana lives as a catalyst for other youth-powered cases. As climate chaos mounts, courts worldwide are increasingly pressed to reconceptualize the meaning of liberty, equality, and the public trust from the perspective of the planet’s youngest inhabitants and future generations.
Led by Professor Catherine Smith (W&L), this Symposium will bring together scholars, lawyers, and activists to analyze this youth-powered movement demanding a paradigmatic shift in the adult-centered doctrines that ushered in the Anthropocene era, including climate change’s unique effect on children, especially children who are members of more vulnerable populations (racially oppressed groups, indigenous communities, living at sea level, for example); how youth-focused constitutional litigation differs from adult-focused litigation; how a youth-based (and future generations) lens forces constitutional doctrines across the globe to evolve; and the procedural and substantive hurdles in not-so-youth-friendly jurisdictions.
The Symposium panel topics include:
• Children, Climate Change, and State Constitutions
• The U.S. Constitution and the Meaning of “We the [Young] People”
• Youth-Powered Litigation and Global Constitutionalism
The Lara D. Gass Symposium is named in honor of Lara Gass, a member of the Law Class of 2014 who passed away in an automobile accident in March of 2014. Gass served as Symposium Editor for the Washington and Lee Law Review, organizing the Law Review’s 2014 symposium focused on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Lara was active within the Women Law Students Organization and also served as a Kirgis Fellow, the law school’s peer mentoring group, during the 2012–21013 academic year. In January 2014, Lara received recognition for her academic achievements, her leadership abilities, her service to the law school and university community, and her character when she was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honor Society.
