Legal Interests in a World of Climate Change Conference
4th June 2025, 8:30 am - 5:45 pm
Old Library, All Souls College
Law alone cannot solve the climate emergency, but what opportunities are there for law and litigation to contribute to the globally fair, urgent, far-reaching response that the world needs? You are invited to join our speakers from a wide range of disciplines as they address the interaction between international and domestic law, politics and science in responding to the climate crisis.
This event is held in association with the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit, as part of the Oxford Local Programme of events themed around climate change, human rights, and climate justice.
Agenda:
08.30 – 09.00 Coffee, tea and pastries
09:00 – 09.05 Welcome from the organisers
09.05 – 10:30 Session One – International laws and national interests
This session will discuss the challenges involved in ensuring that States have the political will to take rapid and far-reaching action to combat climate change, and the tensions between effective action and competing short-term political interests. It will also consider the role of strategic litigation and the part which smaller States can play in bringing about change.
Jeff Colgan, Stuart Delery, Lavanya Rajamani and [Representative of the Government of Vanuatu]
10:30 – 11:00 Morning coffee
11.00 – 12.30 Session Two – Making the science legible
In this session, a panel of scientists with experience of communicating to non-scientific audiences will consider how best to make the science of climate change clear and accessible to the public, including to lawyers, courts and others involved in the process of litigating and debating climate change laws.
Myles Allen, Rupert Stuart-Smith, Srikanth Toppaladoddi
12:30 – 13.30 Lunch
13:30 – 15:00 Session Three – Intergenerational justice
This session will explore the role which the principle of intergenerational justice can and should play in shaping the legal and political response to climate change. Can the principle help to prevent today’s adults from making future generations face disproportionate burdens and risks?
Simon Caney, Alison Macdonald, Valery Salas Flores
15:00 – 15:30 Tea and Coffee
15:30 – 17:00 Session Four – The interaction between international and national laws
International courts and tribunals are considering a range of important cases on the legal obligations of States in relation to climate change. This session will examine the interaction between, on the one hand, the decisions of international courts, tribunals and treaty-monitoring bodies, and on the other, the framework of domestic laws in individual States. How should States go about implementing their international obligations, as set out in the decisions of international courts and tribunals and other sources of international law?
Andrew Gilmour, Harj Narulla, Jessica Simor
17.00 – 17.45 Session Five – Fireside chat: the international judge’s perspective
This session will involve an informal conversation examining the challenges, from the perspective of an international judge, which arise in the context of climate change litigation.
Robert Spano, in conversation with Alison Macdonald
17.45 Concluding remarks
List of speakers
Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford
Simon Caney, Professor of Political Theory, University of Warwick
Jeff Colgan, Richard Holbrooke Professor in the Department of Political Science and Director of the Climate Solutions Lab at the Watson Institute for Public and International Affairs, Brown University
Stuart Delery, Partner, Gibson Dunn; former White House Counsel to President Biden
Andrew Gilmour, Former UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights
Alison Macdonald KC, All Souls College, Oxford; Essex Court Chambers, London
Harj Narulla, Doughty Street Chambers, London; Visiting Senior Fellow, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics.
Lavanya Rajamani, Professor of International Environmental Law, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford; Yamani Fellow in Public International Law, St Peter’s College, Oxford
Valery Salas Flores, MSc Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford; Latin American Climate Movement, Peru
Jessica Simor KC, Matrix Chambers, London; counsel for the Applicants in Klimaseniorinnen v Switzerland before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights
Robert Spano, Partner, Gibson Dunn; former President of the European Court of Human Rights
Rupert Stuart-Smith, Senior Research Associate in Climate Science and the Law, Oxford Sustainable Law Programme, University of Oxford
Srikanth Toppalododdi, Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, School of Mathematics, University of Leeds
Event organised by Ross Anderson, Wolfgang Ernst, Alison Macdonald and Miriam Meyerhoff, All Souls College, Oxford