Dear LVF Members
Welcome to Legal Voices for the Future’s July newsletter! This edition includes:
- Opportunities to host your own knowledge session
- A look back at our July knowledge session with Hausfeld on the KlimaSeniorinnen decision
- Our upcoming LVF Education and Community events
- Members Survey open – we would love your feedback!
- A selection of films on climate change and biodiversity
We are taking a break for the rest of the summer, so we wanted to say thank you for your support over the first half of 2025. We will be back in September for a new schedule of sessions and events; we can’t wait to see you all there!
Interested in hosting your own knowledge session?
We’re super grateful to all our members who have given up their time, since LVF started over 2.5 years ago, to host their own knowledge sessions covering such fascinating and wide-ranging topics on the intersection between the law and climate / ecological issues!
We’re always on the hunt for new session ideas and we’ve had lots of discussions with members about potential topics. We would really encourage you to put thoughts down to paper and send us your proposals via our Google Form, available here. Our Stewardship Committee can support you with finding a venue, marketing and refining your content to make your idea a reality!
If you’d like to have an informal chat before submitting your proposal we’d be delighted to speak – reach out to us on LinkedIn or via email at legalvoicesforthefuture@gmail.com.
Looking back at our July knowledge session
On 2 July we were delighted to be hosted by Hausfeld for a knowledge session on ‘KlimaSeniorinnen: one year on’.
Ginevra Bicciolo, Giulia Trojano and Patrick Kenny kicked off with a presentation on the landmark decision at the European Court of Human Rights last year, its aftermath, and the landscape for future climate litigation using human rights arguments. They noted some of the key issues and tensions that are coming up in these cases – like intergenerational burden sharing, adaptation vs mitigation, and the fact arguments are often based on health issues. The speakers predicted that future cases will challenge corporations (like the recent Milieudefensie case), that the Aarhus Convention will feature, and carbon capture will increasingly be a focus for claimants.
We then moved to a Q&A with experts Mark Willers KC (Garden Court Chambers) who was instructed to act as a leading advocate for the applicants in KlimaSeniorinnen, and Cassie Roddy-Mullineaux (Global Legal Action Network) who is involved in the domestic implementation of the judgment. They talked about their reactions to the decision and what could have been decided or argued differently – with Marc commenting on the potential to use Article 14 ECHR arguments. For all our junior members, it was great to hear about how Marc and Cassie got to this point in their journey – we particularly loved Cassie’s message that there are ways for all of us to educate ourselves about climate change and the individual impact we can make at our organisations, regardless of the type of place we work.
The creative content was a short documentary about climate change protest and activism available here – unfortunately we weren’t able to do our usual break out rooms for discussions due to time constraints, but we hope those in person enjoyed the conversations afterwards!
Upcoming events
LVF Education
- September Members’ Webinar – Stewardship Committee member Hadrien Espiard will be hosting a webinar in collaboration with a research centre to better understand how biodiversity and conservation policies manifest on the ground. We will be sharing more details to sign up in due course.
- LVF’s September knowledge session will be hosted by Stewardship Committee member Dominika Leitane and will focus on the role of NGOs in the law. Sign up details will be available soon.
You can always find more about our upcoming events on our website and Ticketsource page, and details of our past events on our website.
LVF Community
- From 2 May – 10 August: Unearthed: The Power of Gardening – in person in London. This exhibition at the British Library celebrates gardening as a force for creativity, resilience and community through the remarkable stories of the people and plants that shape our gardens – members of our Stewardship Committee will be visiting at 11am on Saturday 26th July, let us know if you would like to join by replying to this email! We will be setting up a WhatsApp group to coordinate. (Tickets are £15, with concessions available while Camden residents can enter for £1!)
- 7 September: Picnic and book club discussion – join us for a picnic at Lincoln’s Inn field bandstand where we will also be discussing our books of choice from our first book club and swap. We will also be deciding our new theme for the second half of the year. You can find the list of books here! Join this WhatsApp group for us to provide updates: https://chat.whatsapp.com/JGXMwaK0m721zQyFKxB64U
Other events
- 16 July 2025:Climate Change & Biodiversity – UK-Colombia Collaborations Post COP16. This event will have a panel debate on climate change, biodiversity conservation and international environmental policy, highlighting the collaborations between the UK and Colombia following COP16.
- 24 July 2025: AI and the SDGs – working towards the UN Global Goals 2030. A hybrid event exploring the impact of AI on climate change solutions and how the global south is using digitalisation to promote sustainable development particularly in Africa. Also what are the challenges and pitfalls that we need to be aware of and how can we as civil society navigate in this new world of AI. Tickets to attend here.
- 25 July 2025: University of Bristol Known Unknowns Event (Bristol). A panel discussion on interdisciplinary collaboration in which lawyers and artists explore intractable uncertainty problems and consider the different ways in which law and art encounter factual uncertainty. Although this event is not strictly environmental/climate focused, the climate crisis is synonymous with uncertainty and as lawyers, we can learn from other disciplines and learn creative problem solving. More information here.
- 11 September 2025: The Wild Summit (Bristol). We have an exclusive 30% discount for LVF members on ticket prices to The Wild Summit, a new national event to supercharge nature recovery led by Wildlife and Countryside Link, England’s largest environmental coalition. Join over 1,000 voices and more than 30 major nature organisations, including the National Trust, WWF, and RSPB at Bristol Beacon. The summit will host speakers such as David Wolfe KC, Tony Juniper and Ruth Davis and feature a full day of talks, panels, workshops, and networking opportunities, all focused on accelerating action for nature and ensuring the UK meets its 2030 targets. Topics will range from support for British farmers, to the need for nature friendly planning reform, solutions to sewage and chemical pollution, to exploring how industry and government can work together to deliver nature’s recovery at scale. Tickets are available here and LVF members can receive a 30% discount on the standard day ticket using code WS30 at checkout. Students are eligible for a further discount by selecting ‘In person – subsidised ticket’ (priced at £40 per person).
Thank you for your support
Ahead of LVF’s August break, we’d like to thank everyone that has attended any of our events so far this year. From our hosts to our panels, facilitators and attendees, we couldn’t host our sessions without you.
We have hosted sessions on a range of topics, if you missed any you can catch up on our YouTube channel:
- AI, the Environment & Law led by our member Klara Lee
- The Darker Side to ESG led by LVF member Charlotte Branfield
- Protecting the World’s Oceans: the IMO and Climate Change led by SC member Verity Thomson
- Scaling nature-based investments through harnessing institutional capital led by our members Varnika Chawla and Tasha Lea.
We also had the fantastic opportunity to head to Wakelyns Agroforestry for our first LVF field trip with thanks to David Wolfe KC and Amanda Illing! You can watch a short clip of our trip or read Harriet’s blog from the trip here. We are already planning ideas for our next field trip, so watch this space!
We would be really grateful for your feedback! What do you enjoy about LVF and what can we do better? Is there anything you would like to see from LVF? You can let us know by filling in our Members’ Survey here.
Films for all your climate viewing desires
We have selected a few categories from animations to films about indigenous communities so that there is something for everyone! So, whether you’re in the mood for a cartoon or a more serious docufilm, we’ve got a great selection for you!
| Climate change 2040 Burning Chasing Ice Don’t Look Up | Land use Kiss the Ground Before the Flood Down to Earth |
| Climate activism Youth v Gov Duty of Care – The Climate Trials Erin Brockovich The Last Farmer Dark Waters | Animations Wall-E Lorax Princess Mononoke Nausicaa The Man Who Planted Trees |
| Protecting Biodiversity The Ivory Game Virunga Chasing Corals Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet | Indigenous communities and climate change The Territory Tarcila: Indigenous solutions to climate change from Peru The Condor & The Eagle Under Rich Earth |
Legal Voices for the Future 
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