What is (the) matter with climate litigation? Law, nature, and the limits of legal technique

Abstract This article examines how nature is mediated by law in climate cases. In the Federal Court of Australia decision in Minister for the Environment v. Sharma (2022), the court applied a narrow definition of ‘matter of law’ (justiciability), and thereby negated ‘matter in law’ (such as carbon dioxide and ecological destruction). Climate destruction demands the extension of legal categories and obligations such as tort and nuisance. However, rendering matter through law manifests the classical opposition between nomos and physis (law and nature). By considering the treatment of matter in climate cases, I open a wider discussion about the potentials and limitations of legal technique as a means of mediating nature. Turning to Theodor Adorno's ‘negative dialectics’, I consider how the negation of nature might be redeemed through the extension of legal concepts. Such legal mediation shows the potential for reorienting the dialectic of law and nature – an urgent means of pursuing planetary justice in the current moment.