Malaysia’s growing use of climate litigation could provide citizens with an important avenue to hold the government accountable for environmental commitments, as courts take a more receptive approach to public interest cases, former Malaysian Bar president Ambiga Sreenevasan said.
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Speaking at the National Climate Governance Summit 2026 in Kuala Lumpur last week, Ambiga said climate change should increasingly be viewed through the lens of human rights and legal accountability, particularly as Malaysia has yet to explicitly recognise the right to a healthy environment in its Federal Constitution.
Her remarks came ahead of a panel discussion on a lawsuit filed by six Malaysian youths over the government’s repeated pledge to maintain at least 50 per cent of the country’s land mass under forest and tree cover.
The litigation challenges the government’s commitment that forest and tree cover would not fall below the 50 per cent threshold.
Though she couldn’t publicly discuss the merits of the case, which is currently before the courts, she said it raised important questions about the ability of citizens to seek accountability through the legal system.
The case is the latest example of how litigation could be used to challenge decisions or government commitments with environmental implications, she said, pointing to several earlier cases that have made their way through Malaysian courts.
This follows another landmark suit filed in December last year by environmental watchdog Rimbawatch, against the federal environment and consumer protection ministries over the responsibility to investigate and address greenwashing claims in advertisements of fossil fuel companies.
However, Ambiga said one of the key hurdles in bringing public interest cases to court is locus standi, or legal standing — whether the party bringing the action has a real and genuine interest in the litigation and that they will be adversely affected.
She noted that Malaysian courts have historically struck out cases where parties failed to establish locus standi but have taken a “much more robust approach” to the issue in recent public interest litigation.
She pointed to a 2014 Federal Court case involving the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC), which challenged the government’s refusal to disclose water privatisation concession agreements and audit reports.
The Federal Court found that MTUC had standing to bring the judicial review, ruling that it only needed to demonstrate a “real and genuine interest” in the subject matter and that it was adversely affected.
The union ultimately failed to obtain the documents because of the Official Secrets Act, but Ambiga said the ruling was nevertheless significant in broadening the interpretation of legal standing.
“That’s a big step forward for future public interest litigation cases… It’s a victory in the definition of how locus standi is to be determined,” she said, adding that the issue of standing now appears to be “quite broadly construed” in many public interest litigation cases, potentially making it easier for groups and individuals to bring challenges involving issues of wider public concern.
Environmental rights not explicitly protected
Beyond standing, Ambiga said another major legal issue is that the Federal Constitution does not contain a specific provision protecting the environment.
“There is no specific provision in the Federal Constitution that protects the environment,” she said.
The current position is that courts can interpret Article 5(1) — which protects the right to life and personal liberty — to encompass environmental rights.
Ambiga cited a Court of Appeal judgment in which then-judge Gopal Sri Ram held that the constitutional protection of “life” should not be understood as merely guaranteeing physical existence but should include matters that contribute to a person’s quality of life.
That interpretation included the right to live in a “reasonably healthy and pollution-free environment”, she said.
Ambiga said Malaysia’s National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights 2025-2030 was a positive development in this regard, as it places a human rights framework around business activity and includes provisions relating to environmental protection and a just transition.
The plan also provides for pursuing an amendment to the Federal Constitution to include the environment as a constitutional right, she said, noting it would strengthen the legal framework for addressing climate change and environmental harm.
Ambiga stressed that climate change should not be treated solely as an environmental issue because its effects extend across a range of fundamental rights.
These include the right to life; the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment; health; food; water and sanitation; housing; self-determination; and cultural rights.
The latter are particularly important for Indigenous communities, she said, as climate change and environmental degradation can disproportionately affect their traditional ways of life.
Ambiga also said the same rights-based approach should underpin Malaysia’s proposed Climate Change Bill, which has yet to be tabled in the Parliament.
She criticised the government for not making the draft legislation public and urged that a copy of the bill should be made public to allow civil society and other affected groups to scrutinise and contribute to important laws that will shape Malaysia’s climate transition.
“The government must set the policies with society’s involvement, but the north star is always that the transition must be just. We must never forget to factor in the effect on ordinary people of climate change,” she said.
