Recent court victories won by communities in South Africa against oil and gas companies, like Shell, suggest that while the law is a limited tool of social change, courts have become battlegrounds for political struggles and open doors to spaces where further political action can prosper.

The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General has called for an end to our addiction to fossil fuel extraction in light of the current climate emergency. We can no longer afford to classify it as a zero-sum game where development is pitted against the environment. Instead, a re-balance must be struck between these interests.

Notably, the tide of corporate accountability seems to have shifted. This is significant in light of the ongoing battle to get a binding business and human rights treaty off the ground at the UN level. Interestingly, courts have begun to refer instead to soft-law instruments such as the United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGPs), which is a framework for corporate accountability. The Hague District Court recently drew on the UNGPs when it ordered Royal Dutch Shell PLC to reduce its group-wide carbon dioxide emissions by 45% of 2019 levels by 2030. This judgment was handed down just a few days after the International Energy Agency called for an immediate end to all new oil and gas projects in its report on the proposed pathway to net zero by 2050.

Two seminal cases in South Africa show that communities are leading the struggle against climate change, capitalist extraction and corporate impunity. The courts in both of these opinions pull back the curtains on the various ways that corporations disenfranchise, ignore, and suppress local communities by design. Despite these obstacles, the strength, solidarity, and interconnectedness of the communities prevails.

Both cases deal with proposed seismic surveys on the east and west coasts of South Africa. A seismic survey is the first step in exploring for offshore oil and natural gas resources. It is used to determine where there are oil and gas deposits under the seabed and also to find areas for carbon capture and storage. The survey involves a vessel towing dozens of air guns that fire or blast in regular intervals. The sound travels downwards and outwards and reflects back to the receivers, which map the seabed for oil and gas. The airgun sound “emissions’” can be between 220-260 decibels at the source. It is difficult to make a surface comparison, because sound travels farther and faster in water. But, to contextualize this, a jet plane taking off would produce 120 decibels, fireworks produce 140 decibels, and most sound louder than 150 decibels can burst a human’s eardrum, while 185-200 decibels can kill a human being.

The sound from the blasting is significant as the ocean is an acoustic world. Because water is a dense medium, sound travels farther and faster underwater, and most marine life depend on vibrations and sound cues for basic biological functions. These include communication, feeding, courtship, mating, and navigation. Scientists have found that harms from seismic blasting can affect marine animals both directly, by causing lethal harms and indirectly, by causing sublethal harms. These sublethal or “secondary” harms include increased stress and changes in behavior, which may lead to decreased reproductive activity, foraging, and immunosuppression. Ultimately these harms can result in reductions in survival, which have devastating effects for ecosystems, the same ecosystems that coastal communities rely on. One expert, Dr Rice, analogizes that an industry-scale seismic survey presents the equivalent of organisms living through a continuous 4-6 month thunderstorm—a phenomenon that does not occur in nature.