CDP has just published the Political Necessity Defense Jurisdiction Guide, a comprehensive resource on the necessity defense and its application to political protest. The necessity defense is an age-old legal doctrine that lets individuals off the hook for breaking the law in the public interest. In recent decades, necessity defenses have been successfully used by...
On February 14, the Climate Defense Project (CDP) filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief in State v. Brockway, the case of the Delta 5 climate activists who blocked a crude oil train in Bellingham, Washington in 2014. The CDP brief argues that the Delta 5 protest was necessary — and that the trial court...
Activist Ken Ward admits he broke the law when he shut off a tar sands pipeline, but the surprising outcome of his trial suggests a path forward for environmentalists opposing Trump. An article by Ted Hamilton for The Daily Beast.
CLIMATE DEFENSE PROJECT AND CIVIL LIBERTIES DEFENSE CENTER PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 1, 2017 Contact: Lauren Regan, 541.687.9180 PIPELINE PROTESTER TRIAL ENDS WITH HUNG JURY IN VICTORY FOR CLIMATE MOVEMENT Mount Vernon, WA — In a victory for the climate movement, a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the trial of...
Changemakers all over the United States responded to Donald Trump’s inauguration with “We Are Here,” a call to action from activists and elected officials such as Alicia Keys, Bernie Sanders, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Moore, Tulsi Gabbard, Van Jones, Common, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Janelle Monáe, Taraji P. Henson, and many more. Kelsey Skaggs of Climate Defense Project...
If you think there’s something odd about the US committing itself to at least a 26 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2025 even while federally owned lands produce a quarter of the nation’s fossil fuel energy, you just might be a believer in an old legal concept: the public trust doctrine.
Student activists calling for a shift away from fossil fuels say that institutions that refuse to act forfeit their status as moral leaders. Harvard Law student Ted Hamilton discusses with host Steve Curwood the lawsuit that’s attempting to compel Harvard to divest its portfolio of fossil fuels, and the connections between divestment and the broader...
When our grandchildren write the history of the climate movement, they’ll save a few pages for the trials of 2016. First, they’ll focus on Snohomish County, Washington, where, last Friday, Seattle-area jurors found the so-called Delta 5 not guilty of obstruction for blockading a regional oil facility in 2014. The protest and the acquittal were...
