Minahil Wahid

How have Pakistani courts shaped climate governance through climate litigation?

This project examines how Pakistani courts have shaped climate governance through climate litigation. Existing scholarship focuses largely on a handful of landmark judgments, most notably Leghari, leaving the broader pattern of judicial engagement unexamined. This thesis addresses that gap through a systematic dataset of climate-related judgments from Pakistan’s superior courts, analysed using Systematic Content Analysis and doctrinal analysis. Each judgment is coded across three lenses: sources of law, judicial reasoning, and remedies. Framed through legal pluralism, the study shows how courts have moved beyond deciding disputes to building institutions, supervising implementation and expanding environmental rights, and traces how recent constitutional amendments have constrained these judge-driven modes of enforcement. It situates Pakistan’s rights-heavy jurisprudence within global debates on the role of courts in climate governance in the Global South.

Supervisors - Prof Francesco Sindico and Dr Douglas Jack

Email - minahil.wahid@strath.ac.uk