The 2022 Floods in Gandakha City, Balochistan, Pakistan. Image via Hippopx.com. Royalty-free image.

“They told me not to do it.” Muhammad (a pseudonym) speaks quietly during a phone interview on December 10, 2025. The frustration is evident as he explains that he must once again appear in court over a petition he filed nearly a decade ago against illegal deforestation in his village. When asked whether he believes the courts will rule in his favor, he pauses. “I just want them to rule in my lifetime.”

Muhammad turned to Pakistan’s judiciary in the hope of protecting his constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment — a right that has received growing recognition in the country’s courts as climate disasters intensify nationwide.

Over the past two decades, Pakistan’s superior courts have developed a climate change jurisprudence that is now cited globally. This journey began with the landmark Shehla Zia case, in which the Supreme Court interpreted Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan to include the right to a healthy environment. A decade later, this foundation was reinforced in Asghar Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan, when the Lahore High Court held that “the environment and its protection have taken centre stage in the scheme of our constitutional rights.”

More recently, in May 2025, the Abbottabad Bench of the Peshawar High Court delivered a strongly worded judgment criticizing both the government and the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to safeguard fragile mountain ecosystems. Significantly, the court moved beyond traditional concerns of air and noise pollution, emphasising the need for broader conservation of the natural environment.

Alongside these judicial developments, the Parliament has taken steps to entrench environmental protection in black-letter law, including through Article 9A, introduced by the 26th Constitutional Amendment. Taken together, these shifts offer a cautiously hopeful picture amid an otherwise grim climate reality.

Yet it would be a mistake to view the courts as omnipotent engines of climate justice. To understand what Pakistan’s judiciary can and cannot achieve, it is necessary to situate the courts within the country’s wider social, financial, and institutional constraints. Doing so reveals serious gaps that continue to limit the courts’ ability to deliver meaningful climate justice.

According to a United Nations Environment Programme report published in October 2025, climate litigation worldwide faces structural, procedural, and financial barriers. As a result, it depends heavily on strong civil society networks, a culture of public interest litigation (PIL), and access to specialised legal expertise. In Pakistan, these prerequisites largely remain absent.

During a phone interview with Global Voices, Abira Ashfaq, an advocate and associate professor of practice at Habib University, notes that shrinking NGO funding and the lack of sustained financial support for PIL mean that very few environmental claims ever reach the Environmental Tribunals established to adjudicate such matters.

Even when cases do make it that far, they often struggle to survive the slow pace of judicial proceedings. Muhammad acknowledges that only with the support of a local NGO — which covered the high costs of litigation — was he able to bring his case to court at all. Still, he worries that the organization’s limited resources cannot match the scale of the interests it faces, particularly as funding for civil society continues to decline.

Another structural hurdle is the limited mainstreaming of environmental and climate law within Pakistan’s legal profession. During a Zoom interview with Global Voices, Rafay Alam, one of the country’s leading environmental lawyers, explains how climate law remains confined to a small circle of practitioners.

“Whatever climate law has emerged from the courts over the last 20 to 25 years has been produced by a small family of sorts,” Alam says. “It has not extended beyond individuals who have taken a personal interest.”

As a result, the number of lawyers willing to take on climate cases — as well as judges who have authored climate-related judgments — remains small. Legal education mirrors this gap. Environmental law is taught at only a handful of universities, most of which charge high fees that place these programs beyond the reach of many middle- and low-income students. This has further concentrated climate law expertise within a tightly knit group.

The consequences are visible within the Environmental Tribunals themselves. While judges are generally familiar with the relevant statutes — such as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Act 2014 — many lack sustained exposure to climate science and the evolving principles of environmental law. This, in turn, constrains the judiciary’s institutional capacity to develop more forward-looking climate jurisprudence.

These challenges are further compounded in cases involving large infrastructure projects financed by multilateral development banks (MDBs). Ashfaq notes that the environmental and social safeguard frameworks imposed by lenders such as the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank are, in some respects, more detailed than Pakistan’s domestic environmental laws.

“However, while the banks claim to uphold high standards, they are ultimately focused on project approval and do not welcome the obstacles that a fully functional Environmental Tribunal might present,” she explains.

As a result, in MDB-funded projects, the courts’ capacity to intervene is often curtailed, which in turn weakens their ability to generate meaningful climate jurisprudence.

Globally, climate litigation is on the rise. Between 1986 and 2025, cases originating in the Global South accounted for less than 10 percent of all climate litigation worldwide, though this share is steadily increasing. For Pakistan, which is one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, the need for a judiciary capable of responding to complex climate harms is particularly acute.

Climate change has created an urgent need for domestic courts to expand beyond their traditional role of adjudicating disputes between two identifiable parties. Rafay Alam highlights this when he discusses the challenges of realizing climate justice through the courts.

“Ultimately, what can a court of law do about climate change?” Alam asks. “Can I file a writ petition against the monsoon?”

Pakistan’s legal system is designed to resolve disputes between identifiable parties, a framework ill-suited to the diffuse and systemic nature of climate change. The recent introduction of the 27th Amendment to the Constitution has further complicated access to climate justice for Pakistani citizens. The Amendment established a Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) to adjudicate matters of public interest, a function previously reserved to the Supreme Court. What the Amendment means for climate justice in Pakistan is yet to be determined; however, critics of the Amendment point out that the creation of the FCC and the increasing influence of the executive over the judiciary have severely compromised judicial checks and balances in the country. If Leghari v. Federation were brought before the FCC today, it is likely that the result would have been very different.

Confronting the climate crisis, therefore, demands not only a rethinking of economic and development models, but also institutional reform, including within the judiciary itself. If Pakistan’s courts are to play a meaningful role in advancing climate justice, they must help dismantle financial and structural barriers that prevent vulnerable communities from accessing justice and strengthen their capacity to serve as an effective constitutional check in an era of escalating climate risk.