When David Sued Goliath – Saúl Luciano Lliuya v RWE | with Noah Walker-Crawford

For this episode, we are joined by Noah Walker-Crawford. Noah is a research fellow at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment where he studies climate litigation as a social anthropologist, so in a different way than most of the guests we have heard from so far. He leads a project examining how climate change attribution science shapes litigation. Next to his affiliation with LSE, Noah is also affiliated with the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London.

What brings us together today, is Noah‘s recently published book “The Climate Trial” which provides an account of the case of Saúl Lliuya against German energy company RWE. Starting with the book, we speak about Lliuya v RWE. From there, we dive into Noah’s approach to studying and understanding climate litigation as a social anthropologist. And discuss his work on climate science and how that shaped Lliuya and possible future cases.

References

Noah Walker Crawford, The Climate Trial – Law and Justice on a Melting Planet (Duke University Press, 2026).

Saúl Lliuya v RWE

Pakistani Farmers Case

The Odette Case

Recommendations

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed (Harper & Row, 1974).

About

Editing: Eliza Chiritoiu

Music: “Delayed Flight” by Michael Ramir C. via mixkit

Recorded at the University of Amsterdam, September 2026

The LitDem Project

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (grant agreement n° 101125511).