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Lawsuits for love

Cup of tea in hand, Roger Cox walks down the corridor of Paulussen Advocaten in Maastricht—quietly, almost casually, as if he might sit down at his desk at any moment. You wouldn’t immediately guess that this is the man who, with legal precision, has sent shockwaves through boardrooms, from the Dutch state to Shell and later ING. On Friday 23 January 2026, during Maastricht University’s Dies Natalis, he will receive an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Law for his pioneering work in climate jurisprudence.

Cox speaks with a certain gentleness: thoughtful, sometimes almost apologetic, as if he’d rather not be put on too high a pedestal. An intriguing paradox, because he has been a major figure for some time. In 2021, he was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the world, with words of praise from none other than Al Gore. The outside world mainly sees the image: black gown, court file, David versus Goliath. Cox himself prefers to start with something smaller—with what first moved him.

“This isn’t primarily an intellectual exercise,” he says. “It’s something you do because you’re touched by it.” A little later, he puts it more poetically: it’s about “doing something that feeds your heart.”

Cox remembers exactly what ‘touched’ him: Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth. It was the mid-2000s, and for him, the documentary hit home. It was a shock, a wake-up call. Not because he had been indifferent before. On the contrary: as a boy, he was a keen birdwatcher, roaming the green spaces of South Limburg with binoculars and a notebook. He collected signatures against seal hunting and was involved with the IVN in Voerendaal, an organisation dedicated to nature and environmental education. “I’ve been fascinated by nature for as long as I can remember,” he says.

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Roger Cox

But climate change—CO₂, systemic inertia, the long shadow cast by decades of emissions—operated on a different scale. A different kind of threat, neither local nor temporary. He explains calmly: “Even if we stabilised emissions today, global warming would continue for a long time. That affects my children too.” Suddenly the issue was both intergenerational—we enjoy the benefits now and pass on the burden—and intragenerational: the costs fall first on those who have contributed least to global warming and are least able to escape its consequences.

At this point, another key word enters his story: dignity. “Human dignity is the foundation of our democratic rule of law.” And it is precisely that foundation, he says, that the climate crisis erodes. Freedom should not come at the expense of someone else’s freedom. Yet, this is exactly what happens to people who live close to their environment and cannot simply ‘import’ what the landscape no longer provides.

It is tempting to cast Cox as the moral conscience of the world. But he is first and foremost a man of the law. He began studying political science in Leiden, but was soon drawn to law—its precision, its tools. “Law … is craftsmanship,” he says. Less contemplation, more action. And action, for him, is not just about arguing a case, but about perseverance: years of work, stacks of documents, endless detail, teams of colleagues, four major cases at once. The diligence he is known for sounds less like bravado than necessity. A personal mission.

Those who know him only from his landmark victories may miss one of his most telling formulations: “These are not lawsuits against something, but for something.” He calls them “lawsuits for love.” For children. For nature. For a democracy governed by the rule of law that does not devolve into cynicism or powerlessness.

That, he says, lies at the heart of his international role: the law as a counterweight in a world where multinationals—oil, gas, tech, media—have grown so large and mobile that democratic oversight struggles to keep pace. A governance gap, he calls it: a power vacuum created by decades of deregulation, privatisation and globalisation. Guidelines for self-regulation have been developed at the UN and OECD level, but in practice, they often remain toothless. Only one arena remains, he says, where evidence still outweighs lip service: the courtroom.

Roger Cox

In court, arguments must be substantiated. There’s no room for lazy framing. Politics and the media are dominated by punchy soundbites devoid of substance, Cox says. This is why the trend towards declining respect for court rulings—a trend he has seen accelerate in recent years—concerns him. Just when the judiciary is most needed, it is increasingly cast as suspect for refusing to bend with the times.

And yet Cox is no doomsday prophet. “I try to be realistic. Realism as a moral duty—because looking away is exactly what makes these crises worse.” The future? He chooses his words carefully: it’s about damage control. “The damage is inevitable. The question is how much worse we allow it to become.”

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Roger Cox

How does someone cope who spends his days poring over files describing a world that is growing hotter, drier and more unequal? 

The answer is disarmingly simple: routine, nature, ritual. He deliberately moved back to the Heuvelland—the hill country of South Limburg—so he could live close to the forest rather than in the city. “That regenerates me,” he says. “It calms me.” And then there’s the silence of a nearby monastery. He often drops in—not because he is a strict dogmatist, he stresses, but because the ritual helps him: praying, reflecting, breathing. “For me, faith isn’t about dogma. It’s about ritual.” Gregorian chant as a metronome for the mind. “It lifts me out of time.”

We talk briefly about basketball—American games he sometimes watches to unwind—and about music as a background that brings focus. Then someone is already waiting: the next appointment, another pile of work. All of it, he says, done out of love for the earth, and for what is still to come.

Text: Ludo Diels
Photography: Paul van der Veer

On Friday 23 January 2026, from 15.30 to 17.15, Maastricht University will celebrate its 50th Dies Natalis. This year, the celebration will be especially festive. Expect music, special performances and award ceremonies. No fewer than three honorary doctorates will be conferred. King Willem-Alexander will be in attendance. All seats have been taken, but the celebration can be followed live on 23 January via a livestream on our website.

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