Transnational litigation networks: agents of change in the global constitutional order

This chapter examines the role of Transnational Litigation Networks as agents of change in the global constitutional order as an example of exerted constituent power, and develops the interdisciplinary methodological framework of networked contestation that enables an assessment of their methods of validation of the contestation of legal norms. The chapter is organized in four sections. In the first section, the normative approach of Transnational Litigation Networks to litigation is examined, according to which success only plays a minor role for norm validation. Taking this finding into account, the challenge of creating an appropriate methodological framework that allows for an assessment of their activities is explained. The second section dives into the exemplary area of engagement of Climate Litigation, by which the emergence of Transnational Litigation Networks from their origins until today is traced. The third section assesses global resources of normative change by undertaking a case study of the Urgenda Case in the Netherlands. In the fourth section, a theoretical framework based on viewing transnational litigation networks as actors being capable of creating normative institutions of networked constitutionalism is developed. The case study demonstrates that interconnected practices of norm validation traced throughout the Urgenda Case create normative validity through networked contestation.