When litigants challenge the climate commitments of states, what actually changes? From constitutional cases demanding stronger emission targets to local disputes over fossil fuel infrastructure, government-target litigation has expanded dramatically across every continent. Yet we still know remarkably little about what happens after the judgment. CLIMPACT examines 327 cases across two areas of impact: the Legal, Judicial and Policy area (α), where we trace how litigation reshapes regulatory frameworks, judicial interpretations of state obligations, and the implementation of climate policies; and the Social and Cultural area (β), where we investigate how cases alter public discourse, reconfigure collective understandings of climate responsibility, and generate — or sometimes inhibit — civic mobilization around climate action. An interdisciplinary team of legal scholars and sociologists work simultaneously on the same cases, each through their own methodological lens and integrating the findings through standardized analytical tools and cross-disciplinary dialogue to capture both case-specific developments and patterns across case clusters.

What we're doing Organizing our 327 government-target dataset into macro-clusters, micro-clusters, and analytical tiers to calibrate the depth and focus of investigation to each case type

• For each case, mapping media narratives through computational text analysis (semantic clustering, frame extraction) and qualitative interpretation of national and international press coverage

• For each case, conducting structured expert elicitations with litigants, legal teams, and promoting organizations to capture strategic intent and first-hand perception of impact

• Tracing each case's legal, judicial, and policy effects through systematic cross-referencing against legislation, regulatory and administrative decisions, case law, and academic and grey literature

• At cluster level, designing and deploying targeted surveys addressed to different populations — citizens, policymakers, legal professionals — to measure how specific types of litigation shape public awareness, regulatory behaviour, and judicial reasoning

• Analyzing social media data at cluster level to trace patterns of public mobilization and discourse formation around categories of cases

• Recording all findings in Individual Case Impact Charts (ICICs) at case level and synthesizing them into Aggregate Case Impact Charts (ACICs) at cluster level, with thematic and geographic cross-cluster analyses where emerging patterns cut across the clustering structure

Carbon majors, financial institutions, and corporations across sectors are increasingly confronted with litigation targeting their climate impacts, disclosure practices, and greenwashing claims. These cases operate through a fundamentally different theory of change from government-target litigation, seeking to alter private conduct rather than state policy. CLIMPACT analyzes 173 cases across three areas of impact: the Legal, Judicial and Policy area (α), tracing how litigation transforms the legal construction of corporate climate obligations and governance frameworks; the Social and Cultural area (β), examining how cases reshape corporate-stakeholder relations and societal expectations around corporate climate responsibility; and the Economic area (γ), evaluating how litigation affects corporate strategy, investment decisions, market valuations, and risk disclosure. Our interdisciplinary team of legal scholars and sociologists is joined by economists, working simultaneously on the same cases, each through their own methodological lens, integrating the findings through standardized analytical tools and cross-disciplinary dialogue to capture both case-specific developments and patterns across case clusters. What we're doing

• Organizing our 173 private-target dataset into macro-clusters, micro-clusters, and analytical tiers to calibrate the depth and focus of investigation to each case type

• For each case, mapping media narratives through computational text analysis and qualitative interpretation, with particular attention to how press coverage frames corporate climate responsibility and reputational exposure

• Conducting structured expert elicitations with litigants, legal teams, and promoting organizations to capture strategic intent and first-hand perception of impact on corporate behaviour

• Tracing each case's legal, judicial, and policy effects through systematic cross-referencing against legislation, regulatory decisions, case law, and academic and grey literature, alongside analysis of corporate governance documents, disclosure filings, and strategic communications

• Collecting and analyzing market data — stock prices, investor statements, financial performance indicators — to measure how litigation affects corporate valuations, investment decisions, and risk disclosure practices

• At cluster level, designing and deploying targeted surveys addressed to different populations — citizens, policymakers, legal professionals, corporate actors — to measure how specific types of litigation reshape public expectations, regulatory responses, and corporate decision-making

• Analyzing social media data at cluster level to trace patterns of public discourse around corporate climate accountability across categories of cases

• Recording all findings in Individual Case Impact Charts (ICICs) at case level and synthesizing them into Aggregate Case Impact Charts (ACICs) at cluster level, with thematic and geographic cross-cluster analyses where emerging patterns cut across the clustering structure

Climate litigation does not operate in a vacuum. Policy reform, corporate transformation, and shifts in public discourse result from multiple intersecting forces, and a judicial outcome alone rarely explains what follows. The central methodological challenge is distinguishing genuine causal influence from mere temporal coincidence. At the conclusion of each Research Line, we deploy a rigorous process tracing protocol to reconstruct the precise causal chains linking courtroom developments to real-world outcomes. Building on the evidence gathered through Individual and Aggregate Case Impact Charts, we consolidate findings into Chains of Impact and subject them to a structured sequence of causation tests. The protocol examines counterfactual scenarios and documents interaction effects between impact areas, producing empirically grounded accounts of if, how, and under what conditions litigation drives change.

What we're doing

• At the conclusion of each Research Line, consolidating the evidence gathered in Individual and Aggregate Case Impact Charts into Chains of Impact (CoIs) that reconstruct the sequence of events linking courtroom developments to observed changes in law, policy, corporate behaviour, public discourse, and markets

• Implementing a structured protocol of causation tests designed to verify necessary conditions, identify sufficient causal evidence, and evaluate competing explanations for observed outcomes

• Examining counterfactual scenarios to determine whether observed changes would have occurred absent litigation, distinguishing genuine causal influence from correlation or coincidence with independent forces

• Documenting interaction effects between areas of impact, tracing how legal developments trigger social mobilization or market responses and vice versa, rather than treating each domain in isolation

• Working at both individual case and cluster level to identify when causal mechanisms are case-specific and when they reflect structural patterns shared across categories of litigation

• Producing empirically grounded causal narratives that establish if, how, why, and under what conditions climate litigation generates observable impacts — the core output around which the open-access database is built

Existing climate litigation databases document case characteristics and immediate outcomes, but none traces how cases connect, influence one another, and collectively reshape governance systems over time. Climpact's Open-Access database is designed to fill precisely this gap. Built on a modular, API-based architecture, it integrates case outcomes with our Individual and Aggregate Case Impact Charts, visual and narrative Chains of Impact, and standardized metadata — creating an infrastructure that maps impact pathways across jurisdictions, governance levels, and temporal dimensions. Public APIs will enable researchers, institutions, and civil society organizations to query and build upon Climpact data within their own systems, fostering interoperability with existing repositories rather than duplicating them. What we're doing

• Building the database on a modular, API-based architecture designed for interoperability with existing climate litigation repositories rather than duplication

• Integrating case outcomes with Individual and Aggregate Case Impact Charts, visual and narrative Chains of Impact, and standardized metadata for each case

• Developing advanced visualization tools that allow users to explore impact pathways, causal mechanisms, and cross-jurisdictional patterns

• Enabling controlled growth beyond the original dataset through a submission and peer-review workflow open to external researchers