The paper looks at public interest groups in different fields (energy policy, social policy, consumer policy) and countries. It traces their legalistic strategies and respective outcomes. The paper holds that defining and defending public interest in court depends on different factors: agencies’ capabilities to represent public interest, opportunities and incentives for class action and other forms of collective legal action, legal tradition, and resources of public interest groups. The paper shows that court decisions increasingly shape the notion of public and public interest, thanks to new strategies of public interest groups and non-governmental organizations.
