Climate Change Law, Litigation and Governance

Poster Image - Destructed Earth

Wednesday 14 February 2018, 9:30am-4:30pm

OC0.04 Oculus Building, University of Warwick

James Hansen, one of the world’s preeminent climate scientists, has called for a wave of lawsuits against governments and fossil fuel companies that are delaying action on what he describes as the growing, mortal threat of global warming.

The workshop brings together scholars, legal practitioners and non-governmental organisations to discuss the growing number of climate change cases being litigated around the world. These include the landmark 2015 Urgenda case in the Netherlands, the lawsuit against the Norwegian government for Artic oil exploration plans, the case brought by youths in Oregon against the US federal government, the youth crowdfunding a case against the Portuguese government for responsibility for forest fires, judicial review of the UK government’s policies on greenhouse gas emissions under the Climate Change Act, the lawsuit by three coastal communities in California against energy companies for their contribution to rising sea levels, and the Earthlife case in South Africa.

The presentations will cover, inter alia, the following topics:

• climate litigation
• climate governance, including the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals
• climate justice, including intergenerational justice
• human rights
• government accountability and corporate liability

Speakers

Richard Harvey and Michelle Jonker-Argueta, Greenpeace International

Duncan French, School of Law, University of Lincoln, UK

Louis Kotzé, North-West University, South Africa

Sophie Marjanac, Client Earth UK

Tim Crosland, Plan B

Tom Short, Leigh Day

Gerry Liston, Global Legal Action Network

Hendrik Schoukens, University of Ghent, Belgium

This Event is jointly organised by the Centre for Law, Regulation and Governance of the Global Economy (GLOBE) at Warwick Law School, the School of Law, University of Lincoln, and the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment (GNHRE).

This one-day workshop builds on the successful workshop organised last year by the GLOBE Centre on ‘Governing the Planet: Issues in Global Environmental Governance’ held as part of the International Economic Law in Context Seminar Series.