Frontiers of Climate Litigation
When:
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Venue:
Birkbeck Clore Management Centre
Climate change litigation is a rapidly evolving field. Increasing numbers of individuals and organisations are turning to courts across the world to drive action to address climate change. And cases are diversifying. Claimants now include NGOs, government actors, corporations, individuals – both young and old – and even future generations. Claims encompass matters relating to ‘climate-washing’, ‘polluter-pays’, ‘failure to adapt’ and human rights. Among the defendants, corporations, as well as governments, are now increasingly targeted for failure to align their activities with Paris Agreement goals. Claimants have requested, and received, advisory opinions from international courts and tribunals and climate cases are being brought in more and more countries, including growing numbers in the Global South.
This event brings together speakers working at the cutting edge of climate litigation, both in practice and research, to explore the current status and future directions of climate litigation.
Contact name:
Olivia Hamlyn
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Dr Olivia Hamlyn
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Dr Olivia Hamlyn is a lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London and Pathway Lead for the LLM pathway in Environmental Law, Policy and Governance. Her research interests encompass, in particular, risk regulation, transparency, public participation in decision-making, environmental assessment and the role of imagination in shaping environmental law. She has conducted research for the European Parliamentary Research Service and acted as a consultant for the Green Group in the European Parliament on matters relating to EU pesticides regulation. Prior to joining Birkbeck, she trained as a solicitor at Clifford Chance LLP, completed a PhD at UCL and was a lecturer at the University of Leicester.
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Johnny White
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Johnny White leads ClientEarth’s corporate accountability team. The team explores and implements legal strategies to mainstream climate-related risk and to foster accountability for the impacts of climate change and the obstruction of climate mitigation. It relies on legal tools from human rights law, corporate and financial law and legal frameworks relating to greenwashing. Before joining ClientEarth, Johnny worked at the international law firm Clifford Chance, specialising in international commercial and financial disputes and in human rights law.
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Prof Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh
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Professor Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Amsterdam, Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Fiji, and a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. She previously coordinated the Environmental Law programme at the University of the South Pacific’s Emalus Campus in Vanuatu.
Margaretha’s research and publications, including her book ‘State Responsibility, Climate Change and Human Rights under International Law’ (Hart Publishing 2019), have contributed significantly to the field of international law and climate justice. Forthcoming work includes the Cambridge Handbook on Climate Change Litigation (edited with Sarah Mead), providing an overview of emerging best practice in climate litigation globally.
Margaretha has two decades of experience participating in international climate negotiations and related processes, advising and representing governments, international organisations and public interest groups. She is a member of the Bar of Vanuatu and practices international law from Blue Ocean Law, a boutique international law firm based in Guam.
Currently, she serves as lead counsel for the Republic of Vanuatu in climate change advisory proceedings before the International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. She also chairs the Loss and Damage Subcommittee of the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS) and served as counsel for COSIS in the advisory proceedings on climate change before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
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Prof Stewart Motha
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Stewart Motha is Professor of Law, and co-director of the Centre for Law and Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London. His current research examines law's conceptualisation and administration of 'nature'. This includes a critical exploration of how 'nature' is imagined in climate litigation and national and international environmental law. Stewart has also published widely on issues of postcolonial justice; law, memory, and violence; and theories of sovereignty – research brought together in a monograph, Archiving Sovereignty: Law, History, Violence (University of Michigan Press, 2018). Stewart hosts a regular podcast, Countersign, where books, films, and other materials are discussed with their authors and creators. Multiple episodes of Countersign have dealt with ecological crises and human/animal relations.
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Sonam Gordhan
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Sonam Gordhan is a Departmental Lecturer in Environmental Law at the University of Oxford and Corpus Christi College. Her main research interests are in UK environmental law and climate change adjudication. Sonam’s PhD explored the relationship between the reasoning process of courts and climate change problems to develop a deeper understanding of the role of courts in responding to major ecological crises. Sonam has also written on matters relating to environmental rights, climate framework laws, and climate change adjudication. Before her career in academia Sonam worked in the NGO sector, including as a Phil Michaels Legal Scholar at Friends of the Earth UK. In September 2025, Sonam will join the Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London as a Lecturer in Environmental Law.