Strategic pesticides litigation: advancing food sustainability through courts?

Pesticides governance has long been a politically contentious issue at EU level. In particular, the suitability of the EU regulatory framework for pesticides to uphold the public interest in food sustainability has been repeatedly questioned by both scholars and civil society. Attempts at addressing these criticisms have taken place through legal (e.g., Regulation 1381/2019) and policy reforms (e.g., the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy). Contestation however remains a constant feature of this policy area, as epitomized by the renewals of glyphosate in 2017 and 2023. In light of this, strategic public interest litigation on pesticides has been on the rise before EU Courts. Strategic pesticides cases have so far focused on both procedural and substantive aspects. They have been brought by a variety of applicants, including members of the European Parliament (e.g., Hautala), individual citizens (e.g., Tweedale) and NGOs (e.g., Greenpeace), and have pursued a variety of procedural routes, among which preliminary references (e.g., Blaise) and actions for annulment (e.g., PAN Europe). The paper offers a mapping of the procedural routes available within the EU legal order for actors seeking to uphold food sustainability in the context of EU pesticides governance. It discusses how litigants have been navigating the procedural obstacles to bringing public interest cases in front of the CJEU and assesses their strategies’ effectiveness from the perspective of upholding food sustainability.