NETHERLANDS Trends and Developments Contributed by: Davine Roessingh, Sebastian Hinse and Tom van der Rijt, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek
data from JBS and has already announced its inten - tion to launch litigation should JBS refuse to provide this data. JBS responded in May 2026 by drawing attention to, among other things, the fact that it was unclear from Greenpeace’s letter what the organisa - tion’s exact position was. Greenpeace announced litigation on 22 July 2026. Advocates for the Future v the Port of Rotterdam In May 2026, another Dutch NGO, Advocates for the Future, delivered a notice before action to the Port of Rotterdam. This NGO also announced claims for reductions of, among other things, scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. The Port of Rotterdam appears to be tar - geted because it is held by the Dutch State and the municipality of Rotterdam (ie, public entities). While cases against private companies have difficulty argu - ing the logic of transposing state obligations and national reduction percentages to obligations of a sin - gle, private entity, the NGO in this case likely wishes to use to its advantage the fact that the Port of Rot - terdam is owned by public bodies, and the fact that it serves a public function. This, however, ignores the fact that the claims, as described, essentially relate to the activities of, and would directly impact, the lessees in Rotterdam harbour, which are private companies and their individual assets. The claims hence argue not an emission reduction at group or entity level, but at asset level. The assets in question, in turn, may be held by entities and groups domiciled in many differ - ent jurisdictions in which diverging climate policies and obligations apply. Separation of power between the courts and the legislature The proceedings described raise fundamental ques - tions on the separation of powers between the courts and the legislature, and thus, whether courts can interfere in climate policies. Can they do so regardless of an extensive body of EU and Dutch climate regu - lations that explicitly state alignment with the Paris Agreement, and does this role change if, arguably, existing policies are considered inadequate? Although not a Dutch development, it is relevant in the Dutch context that in May 2026, the German Federal Court of Justice issued its judgments in climate cas - es against BMW and Mercedes-Benz – the first final
judgment at the highest level of a European civil court on the civil law mitigation obligations of companies. The court did not accept that it has a role to play in this respect. The decision of the Dutch Supreme Court in the Milieudefensie / Shell case will therefore be an important one, not merely for its contents as such, but also for the level of alignment or fragmentation that it can cause across countries and markets. Two elements to consider in this context are the tools courts have at their disposal to assess these claims, and the role of science in these cases. As to the first element, court cases are typically conducted between parties and relate to specific events and conduct. In that process, the courts will not automatically be famil - iar with all the interests at play when assessing claims. While policy makers take years to formulate legislation that balances various, often competing, interests, and do so with the support of various bodies and tools, a court’s assessment is not necessarily as broad and versatile, and is based on what parties argue in the specific case and how well they do so. Secondly, the court’s assessment will require an assessment of sci - ence that science itself may not have foreshadowed. This is, for example, true for climate scenarios and pathways. These are not predictions, but instead, con - ditional narratives: structured explorations of what the future might look like if certain policy, technology, and economic assumptions hold. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Sixth Assessment Report alone draws on hundreds of such pathways. Within those classified as limiting warming to 1.5°C, there is substantial internal variation. Some, such as the International Energy Agency (IEA)’s Net Zero Emis - sions by 2050 scenario, proceed from the assumption that no new oil and gas field development is required. Others – including a number of IPCC-assessed path - ways that accept limited or no overshoot – incorpo - rate continued exploration and phased reduction, relying on different assumptions about carbon diox - ide removal (CDR) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and demand destruction, fuel switching, the pace of renewable deployment and variation in the extent of overshoot projected and/or accepted. None of these scenarios is uniquely “cor - rect”. Selecting one as the legal standard is therefore not a scientific act – it is a policy choice, and one that carries consequences for capital allocation, industrial
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