CLA News / Silenced for Speaking Out: Protecting Environmental Defenders from SLAPPs By Steven Thiru, President, Commonwealth Lawyers Association

“Without environmental defenders, there is no climate justice.”

~ Senior Attorney Luisa Gómez Betancur, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)

The Escalation of SLAPPs Against Environmental Defenders

Environmental defenders are increasingly under siege worldwide, facing mounting litigation deployed strategically not to resolve disputes but to intimidate and silence advocacy, discourage civic engagement, and derail action on climate justice.

This global phenomenon of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — widely known as SLAPPs — affects every level of environmental advocacy, including by activists, grassroots campaigns, community groups, civil society organisations, public interest watchdogs, journalists and media organisations, trade unions, scientists, and other whistleblowers who seek to uphold environmental justice.

Between 2010 and 2024, 126 SLAPPs on environmental matters were recorded across Europe alone, revealing a chilling trend in which legal systems are leveraged to burden those speaking out on urgent ecological matters. The consequences extend far beyond the litigants themselves — civic space is narrowed, and the ability of individuals and organisations to speak out against environmental harm and demand accountability is incalculably undermined.

Justice Singh in Fraser v. Saanich [1999] B.C.J. No. 3100 (B.C.S.C.) succinctly described a SLAPP as “a meritless action filed by a plaintiff whose primary goal is not to win the case but rather to silence or intimidate citizens who have participated in proceedings regarding public policy or public decision making”.

Understanding the strategic abuse of litigation is critical for lawyers, judges, legislators, and policymakers, as it reveals how legal mechanisms designed to deliver justice can be manipulated to suppress it. It underscores the shared responsibility of those who shape, administer, and uphold legal systems to ensure that courts are not used as instruments of intimidation, and makes clear that safeguarding the integrity of legal processes is essential to preserving democratic participation and the rule of law.

Illustrative Cases

1. Tungkum Ltd. v Surapun Rujichaiyavat and five others (Loei Provincial Court, Thailand)

In 2015, Tungkum Ltd. sued six members of the Khon Rak Ban Kerd Group for defamation after they called for the closure of a local gold mine and environmental rehabilitation. The court dismissed the case, recognising their legitimate exercise of the constitutionally protected freedom of expression and community rights to safeguard natural resources and seek environmental restoration. The company had to compensate affected families and undertake environmental clean-up. It has since gone bankrupt and ceased operations, though the affected residents have yet to receive compensation.

2. Energy Transfer, LP, et al. v. Greenpeace International, et al. (North Dakota Supreme Court, United States)

The Dakota Access Pipeline for transporting crude oil crosses numerous waterways of ecological and cultural significance for several successor tribes of the Great Sioux Nation. In 2017, Energy Transfer, the company leading the project, filed a federal lawsuit alleging civil racketeering as well as state law claims against Greenpeace organisations, BankTrack, EarthFirst, and unnamed individuals, claiming the defendants conspired to disrupt pipeline construction. In 2019, the district court dismissed the racketeering charges and declined jurisdiction over the state law claims.

Energy Transfer filed a new state-court suit alleging trespass, defamation, tortious interference, and civil conspiracy. Greenpeace countered that it had promoted only peaceful protest, with minimal involvement limited to signing a letter to banks opposing the pipeline. The court denied Greenpeace’s motion for a change of venue to secure a more impartial jury. In a landmark development on 11 February 2025, Greenpeace International filed a lawsuit in the District Court of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, seeking to recover damages from Energy Transfer’s successive suits, marking the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1069).

3. Adani Mining Pty Ltd v. Ben Pennings (Supreme Court of Queensland, Australia)

Starting in 2020, environmental activist Ben Pennings, a spokesperson for the Galilee Blockade opposing the Carmichael coal mine, faced a protracted legal battle initiated by Adani Mining. The company filed civil claims alleging that Pennings had orchestrated a campaign to disrupt mine operations, harass contractors, and unlawfully access confidential information, seeking damages of up to AUD $600 million. Adani’s actions included hiring private investigators to surveil Pennings and his family, underscoring the risks activists face when challenging powerful corporate interests.

In November 2025, after five-and-a-half years of litigation, Adani dropped its damages claims, and the court required only that Pennings refrain from obtaining or soliciting the company’s confidential information. Pennings hailed the outcome as a landmark victory against one of Australia’s largest and longest-running SLAPPs.

How SLAPPs Violate the Principles of the Sabah Declaration on Climate Justice

The Sabah Declaration on Climate Justice, adopted by the Commonwealth Lawyers Association on 28 February 2025 in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, affirms that climate justice must be anchored in human rights, justice, equity, and the rule of law. It explicitly declares that “freedom of expression and the right to peacefully protest in support of climate action must be protected”.

SLAPPs undermine these core commitments by weaponising the legal system to intimidate, burden, and curtail environmental defenders, deterring them from participating in public discourse and advocacy on urgent ecological issues. Where SLAPPs impose disproportionate legal costs, threaten crippling liabilities, or drag out litigation for years without merit, as seen in the Energy Transfer and Adani cases, they erode the very civic space that the Sabah Declaration calls on the Commonwealth to uphold. This chilling effect runs counter to the Sabah Declaration’s affirmation that responses to the climate crisis must be grounded in the protection of human rights and the rule of law, not the suppression of dissent.

The Sabah Declaration recognises that climate-vulnerable groups, including Indigenous peoples, youth, women, and other marginalised communities, must be empowered to “assert their rights and participate actively and effectively in decision-making processes that shape climate action”. SLAPP litigation disproportionately affects precisely these groups and environmental defenders by diverting their resources and attention from constructive participation to defending against baseless legal attacks.

When powerful actors resort to SLAPPs, they fracture inclusive governance and truncate meaningful participation; this is antithetical to the Sabah Declaration’s emphasis on equity and accessible justice. SLAPPs thereby not only stifle advocates but also weaken collective efforts to shape climate policy, undermining democratic engagement and perpetuating systemic imbalances between corporate interests and vulnerable populations.

The Sabah Declaration further underscores that robust legal frameworks “must ensure fairness, accountability, just outcomes and accessible justice institutions (both formal and informal)”, and that climate action must be pursued under the “best available science, justice and the rule of law”. SLAPPs exploit procedural rules and the threat of protracted litigation to create outcomes that are neither fair nor rationally connected to the merits of environmental advocacy.

By imposing barriers to public participation and access to justice, SLAPPs strike at the heart of the rule-of-law commitments in the Sabah Declaration. In this sense, tackling SLAPP strategies is not merely a matter of procedural reform; it is essential to realising the Sabah Declaration’s broader vision of empowering environmental defenders, safeguarding equitable participation, and ensuring that legal systems serve as instruments for climate justice rather than tools of suppression.

The Critical Role of the Legal Profession

Lawyers occupy a pivotal position in the collective effort to combat SLAPPs, serving as both gatekeepers and enablers of justice. Their decisions to initiate, defend, or resist legal proceedings can either reinforce accountability or perpetuate intimidation. In environmental advocacy, where the stakes include not only ecological preservation but also public participation and fundamental rights, the responsibility of legal professionals assumes heightened significance. By exercising diligence and ethical judgment, lawyers can ensure that litigation is used as a tool for genuine dispute resolution rather than as an instrument to silence public interest defenders.

Declaration 10 of the Sabah Declaration states that lawyers should “act urgently to do all they can to address the causes and consequences of the climate and ecological crises and to advance a just transition to a low emissions future”. This underscores the urgent role that lawyers must play not only in responding to immediate threats, such as environmental SLAPPs, but also in advancing systemic solutions that safeguard both the planet and public discourse.

The guidance by the United Kingdom’s Solicitors Regulation Authority is instructive and must have universal resonance:

Our key messages for solicitors and law firms are:

• you must not bring or threaten unmeritorious claims or engage in tactics that are intimidatory or otherwise oppressive

• your duty to act in your client’s interest must be balanced with your wider professional obligations, including your duty to the courts and to uphold the rule of law, which take precedence should these come into conflict

• you should identify proposed causes of action or behaviours which comprise a SLAPP or abuse of the litigation process, and decline to act in this way

• particular care is required where a publication ventilates a matter that is likely to engage the public interest.

Protecting Those Who Speak for the Planet

As environmental advocacy increasingly transcends national borders, so too do the tactics used to quash it. Corporations and powerful actors are no longer confined to domestic courts; they initiate parallel or successive proceedings across jurisdictions, amplifying financial pressure, reputational strain, and legal uncertainty for environmental defenders.

In this globalised landscape of legal intimidation, fragmented national responses are no longer sufficient. A binding international treaty against SLAPPs is urgently required — one that builds upon the safeguards of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive, particularly concerning early dismissal of manifestly unfounded claims, meaningful cost-shifting mechanisms to deter frivolous litigation, and protections for public participation in cross-border cases. These safeguards reflect a recognition that procedural abuse is itself a threat to justice and to the fair administration of the law.

An international framework grounded firmly in the rule of law, human rights, and access to justice would not only harmonise standards but also restore confidence that legal systems cannot be manipulated to suppress dissent.

At the domestic level, a critical procedural safeguard in addressing SLAPPs lies in the robust deployment of strike-out and early-dismissal mechanisms. Jurisdictions such as California have adopted legislative frameworks that enable defendants to challenge such suits at the outset, effectively shifting the burden onto claimants to demonstrate a reasonable likelihood of success before proceedings are permitted to continue. Analogous protections have also been developed in Canada (for example, in Quebec and Ontario), the Philippines, and the United Kingdom.

This procedural recalibration is complemented by cost-shifting provisions, under which unsuccessful claimants must bear the defendants’ legal costs, thereby deterring frivolous or strategic litigation. Such mechanisms give effect to a broader principle: that access to justice must not be distorted into a tool of oppression, and that courts must be equipped not only to adjudicate disputes, but also to curtail their misuse swiftly and decisively.

For lawyers across the Commonwealth, the imperative is clear: to champion reforms that protect civic space and reinforce the integrity of legal systems. As presciently observed by Senior Attorney Luisa Gómez Betancur, if climate justice is to be realised globally, the protection of those who speak for the planet must likewise be secured at the international level.

By Steven Thiru

Steven Thiru was admitted as a Barrister-at-Law (Middle Temple) and practises as an Advocate and Solicitor from Malaysia. He is a Past President of the Malaysian Bar, Vice President of LAWASIA for 2025 to 2026, and President of the Commonwealth Lawyers Association for 2025 to 2027.

He records his appreciation to Jaishanker Sadananda and Chin Oy Sim for their assistance in preparing this article for publication.