Climate Change as Unjust Enrichment
MAYTAL GILBOA*, YOTAM KAPLAN** & ROEE SAREL***
The climate crisis is the most significant challenge of our generation,
with no satisfactory legal response in sight. Political polarization and
influence from special interest groups have hindered effective regulatory
action on both national and international fronts. Climate litigation
through the court system, primarily based on tort principles, has also
been largely unsuccessful.
In response to these legal failures, some courts and commentators
have suggested that the law of unjust enrichment may provide the correct
legal framework for addressing the climate crisis. This Article is the first
to offer a general legal framework of climate change as unjust enrich-
ment. This analysis is a necessary first step toward the adoption and suc-
cess of unjust enrichment claims in climate litigation.
The Article provides a doctrinal and normative assessment of this legal
innovation. First, doctrinally, we highlight some advantages of unjust
enrichment doctrine as a vehicle for climate litigation. Mainly, a tort
claim must be based on a clear showing of harm. This requirement is dif-
ficult to satisfy in climate litigation, which is based mostly on future,
abstract, and highly dispersed harms. Conversely, a claim of unjust
enrichment does not necessitate direct proof of harm but focuses on the
unjust gains of the defendant. While the worst harms of climate change
lie in the future, strong commercial actors benefit here and now.
Second, normatively, we highlight the compatibility of enrichment-based
liability with the goals of climate litigation. If pollution remains profitable,
it would be naı
¨
ve to anticipate any significant progress in mitigating
climate change. By making it possible to take away unjust gains, the law
* Associate Professor, Bar Ilan University Faculty of Law. © 2024, Maytal Gilboa, Yotam Kaplan &
Roee Sarel.
** Professor, Hebrew University Law School.
*** Junior Professor of Private Law and Law & Economics, Institute of Law & Economics,
University of Hamburg. For insightful comments and discussions, we thank Emily Barritt, Marija Bartl,
Vanessa Casado Pe
´rez, Rashmi Dyal-Chand, Monika Ehrman, Eberhard Feess, Mia Gray, Amnon
Lehavi, Candida Leone, Ronit Levine-Schnur, Adi Libson, Yael Lifshitz, Colin Mackie, Chantal Mak,
Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz, Gideon Parchomovsky, Ariel Porat, Oren Perez, Irit Samet, Ori Sharon, Henry
Smith, Doron Teichman, Aukje van Hoek, Shelley Welton, Katrina Wyman, Eyal Zamir, and
participants at the 2023 King’s College Energizing Private Law Workshop, the 2023 Amsterdam Law
School Ecologies of Private Law Lecture Series, and the 2024 UCL Faculty of Law Private Law Theory
Conference. For excellent research assistance, we thank Hillel Billauer, Fabien Collier, Antonia Imberh,
Maor Levi, Caio Lima, Sheila Lynn, Niv Meirson, Rafaella Moscalewsky, Karolina Piskorska, and Ioan
Sumandea. We thank the German-Israel Foundation for Scientific Research & Development for
generous financial support (Grant Number 1529). Co-funded by the European Union (ERC, UEPP,
101077050). Views and opinions expressed, however, are those of the authors only and do not
necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the
European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
1039
of unjust enrichment can offer a remedy that addresses this key feature of
the crisis.
The Article also outlines the outer boundaries of liability in unjust
enrichment and explains the conditions under which it should and should
not apply. Defining a narrow scope of liability helps provide a tailored
legal response, one that can be utilized by courts without overburdening
defendants. Note that our goal is not to replace existing legal frameworks
nor to offer unjust enrichment as a comprehensive and exclusive solution
to the climate crisis. Rather, we aim to draw attention to this important
option, hitherto understudied in legal scholarship and underutilized in
practice, and to highlight some of its possible advantages.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1041
I. THE CLIMATE CRISIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1047
A. TEMPERATURE CHANGES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1049
B. SEA LEVEL RISE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1051
C. SPECIES EXTINCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053
II. STATE OF THE LAW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1054
A. REGULATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1054
1. Domestic Regulation in the United States .............. 1055
2. Regulation at the International Level .................. 1058
B. TORT LITIGATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1061
1. Duty and Breach.................................... 1062
2. Harm ............................................. 1063
3. Causation.......................................... 1064
III. FROM TORT TO UNJUST ENRICHMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1067
A. THE LAW OF UNJUST ENRICHMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1067
1. Unjust Enrichment Through a Wrong.................. 1069
2. Unjust Enrichment Without a Wrong.................. 1072
B. CLIMATE ENRICHMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1074
1. Climate Enrichment Through a Wrong ................ 1075
1040 THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 112:1039
2. Climate Enrichment Without a Wrong................. 1079
IV. COMPARATIVE INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1081
A. HARMS V. GAINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082
1. Nonmonetary Harms v. Monetary Gains ............... 1083
2. Future Harms v. Present Gains........................ 1084
3. Widespread Harms v. Concentrated Gains ............. 1084
B. THE IDENTITY OF PLAINTIFFS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1085
1. Private Plaintiffs: Aggregated Litigation & Imputed
Plaintiffs .......................................... 1085
2. Public Plaintiffs .................................... 1088
C. INCENTIVES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1089
1. Measuring Disgorgement ............................ 1090
2. The Risk of Chilling Effects.......................... 1092
3. Mitigation of Harms ......................... ....... 1093
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1094
INTRODUCTION
The global legal system is struggling to respond effectively to the pressing
issue of climate change.
1
The nature of the crisis, its global scope, and its far-
reaching implications
2
require a broad and comprehensive approach involving
both national regulations and international treaties.
3
But the political and eco-
nomic landscape presents a complex array of challenges, including conflicting
interests and difficulties in reaching a consensus on a unified legal response.
Many countries prioritize short-term economic growth over the long-term com-
mitment to stabilizing the climate, making it difficult to persuade them to comply
with global regulations that may require costly concessions.
4
1. See Victor B. Flatt, Adapting Laws for a Changing World: A Systemic Approach to Climate
Change Adaptation, 64 FLA. L. REV. 269, 270 (2012) (explaining that the recent shift from climate
change mitigation to climate change adaptation is based on the understanding that climate change
impacts are inevitable).
2. Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, Comment, Addressing the Green Patent Global Deadlock Through
Bayh-Dole Reform, 119 YALE L.J. 1727, 1727 (2010) (“Without a global commitment to dramatically
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will very likely cause catastrophic damage in this
century.”).
3. See Eloise Scotford & Stephen Minas, Probing the Hidden Depths of Climate Law: Analysing
National Climate Change Legislation, 28 REV. EUR. COMPAR. & INT’L ENV’T L. 67, 69 (2019).
4. See infra Section II.A.
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