James Thornton is not what you expect from a New York lawyer. He has a soft lyrical voice; each statement he makes is carefully balanced and deeply considered; he practices Buddhism, is gay, and drinks green tea.
But he is fierce. This one man poses the greatest threat to polluting companies operating in Europe. Is this hyperbole? Well, the founder of ClientEarth was presented with the Financial Times’ Special Achievement Award at the Innovative Lawyer Awards in 2016, and has been named as one of ten people who could change the world by the New Statesman. He has been working with high ranking Chinese officials to revolutionise environmental law across one of the world’s biggest economies. These and grander accolades fill his Wikipedia entry.
ClientEarth is a not-for-profit environmental law firm that now has offices in London, Brussels, Warsaw, Berlin and Beijing. Thornton is perhaps best known for the Clean Air Campaign, in which he brought the UK Government to the Supreme Court for “failing to protect its citizens against air pollution”. Aspects of the case were taken up by the Court of Justice of the EU leading the way to further suits against companies across the continent.
