November 2025 Newsletter

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by

Legal Voices for the Future
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Dear Members

Welcome to LVF’s November newsletter!

The Great Migration is the world’s largest movement of mammals with nearly 2 million animals moving in a circular pattern across Kenya and Tanzania. They all move with the rains, adapting to every challenge the land brings.

Nature teaches us that resilience is not about resisting change, but moving with it.

This edition of Legal Voices for the Future’s the newsletter includes:

  • LVF’s latest member blog post on ‘The ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change’ by Ellie Stringer
  • Look back at our October Member’s Webinar and November KS Our upcoming LVF Education and LVF Community events
  • Resources on COP30

See you next month,

October Members-only webinar

Our own Stewardship Committee member Hadrien Espiard hosted a webinar in collaboration with Therese Sivertsson to better understand how biodiversity and conservation policies manifest on the ground.

Hadrien introduced conservation policies at the international, supranational (EU) and national (UK) levels. He engaged attendees to think critically about the drivers behind these policies, how these drivers have changed through time, and the gaps that these policies might fail to adequately address.

Therese – a former sustainability researcher with the BridgingVALUES project – started by introducing this project and the concept of sustainability science as a research discipline more broadly. She explained the unique features of sustainability research as being both normative and action-oriented, having stewardship action as a primary desired outcome. Therese explained how this worked in practice on the Swedish island of Öland, where she conducted workshops with several key interest groups (including farmers, landowners and civil servants). Therese closed by inviting attendees to think differently about the value of nature through the nature futures framework.

November Knowledge Session

On 5 November we had our first November knowledge session on Investor-State Arbitration and Climate Challenges, led by WilmerHale Senior Associate Xiaohan Cai and LVF Stewardship Committee member Carol Yuen. We were joined by panellists Judy Fu, a commercial barrister at 3VB; Lucia Bizikova, Associate in the Litigation/Controversy Department; Dr Oliver Hailes, an Assistant Professor at the LSE Law School and Saadia Bhatty, Partner and Co-head of Gide’s International Dispute Resolution team in London.

The panellists discussed how advisory opinions and decisions issued by courts such as the ICJ, the IACHR, and the ECHR affect States’ obligations to meet their climate commitments and investor-state arbitration. States must implement national laws and policies that limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C. There are now “new generation treaties” which address the backlash against investment arbitration. These treaties might allow States the discretion to introduce climate and environmental policies, or remove protection for fossil fuels and other highly polluting industries. In addition to conflicting obligations, the assessment of damages to fossil fuel assets and the foreseeability of legislative changes are difficult legal issues.

Watch the recording of the session here. As we approach the end of the year, we would like to remind you that our short member’s survey is always open. It takes less than 10 minutes and we really appreciate your feedback and want to hear how you think LVF can be improved.

Upcoming events

LVF Education

  • December Knowledge Session: Climate Activism in the UK: Join us in person at the Grantham Research Institute or online, on 9 December 2025. We will discuss recent legal reforms and developments in case law climate protest and watch a short clip from documentary film “The Line We Crossed“, directed by Liz Smith and featuring Clive Dolphin. Our panel will review the range of challenges faced by climate protesters in the UK today, and attempt to chart a way forward for activists. Our panel experts are: Owen Greenhall, (Garden Court Chambers); Sarah Finch (R v Surrey County Council); David Whyte (Queen Mary University); and Clive Dolphin (Defend Our Juries). Register here!

Details of our events are in the table below, and you can also always find more about our upcoming events on our website and Ticketsource page, and details of our past events on our website.

LVF Community

  • Poetry evening: we will be hosting our first ever poetry reading evening soon! We will circulate details in due course. 
  • LVF turns 4: we will be hosting Legal Voices for the Future’s 4th birthday party in January 2026, watch this space!

Other events

Events on COP30 are covered further below, and non-COP events are as follows:

  • 3 December 2025, hybrid at UCL Centre for Law and Environment – The Evolving Intersection of Corporate and Environmental Law. The lecture will focus on the intersection between these fields of law while considering the restrictions on avenues for corporate accountability and how to strengthen environmental law. You can book your ticket here.
  • 4 December 2025, hybrid at UCL Faculty of Laws – Is Environmental Law Hopeful? This lecture is part of the Current Legal Problems Lecture series and will focus on whether Environmental Law is, and can be, hopeful in the context of the routine confrontation of bad news about the climate and biodiversity. You can sign up here.
  • Ongoing open daily, in person – Visions of Nature: A mixed reality experience at the Natural History Museum. An interactive exhibition using mixed reality glasses to show how the planet may look like 100 years from now. Book your tickets here.
  • Ongoing until 4 January 2026 at the Science Museum – Future of Food Exhibition. An interactive, multi-sensory exhibition exploring how our food today goes from field to plate and how will advances in ecology and biotechnology change food in the future. Tickets are free, book here.
  • On demand: catch up with the launch of Pete Bett’s book ‘The Climate Diplomat‘, hosted by our partner the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and Environment.

If you go to any of these events – let us know! We’d love to hear your experience and share it with other Legal Voices members on our Linkedin Community Group and website.

New member blog post

Our member Ellie Stringer has published a new blog post on ‘The ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change’ which provides a summary of the ICJ’s key findings on the sources of states’ climate obligations and the legal consequences of breach, before considering how the Opinion may influence the responsibilities and practice of states, international organisations, private actors, and individuals. Check out her post here.

COP30

November has become a synonym of COP! This year, COP was in Belém, Brazil from 10-21 November. Aligned with the Paris Agreement Global Stocktake, COP30’s Action Agenda revolved around six thematic axes covering mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation and 20 key objectives were set:

  • Transitioning Energy, Industry, and Transport
  • Stewarding Forests, Oceans and Biodiversity
  • Transforming Agriculture and Food Systems
  • Building Resilience for Cities, Infrastructure and Water
  • Fostering Human and Social Development
  • Unleashing Enablers and Accelerators, including on Finance, Technology, and Capacity

Thematic days: Education and youth participation at the forefront of COP30

Last year, LVF member Mathilda Lorkin attended COP29 in Baku and wrote a blog post on her experience, in which she told us her views on the importance and involvement of young people at COPs.

During COP30, Thematic Days covered topics including Education, Justice, and Children and Youth. As part of the negotiations, representatives of participating nations, the COP30 Presidency, and the United Nations system highlighted the need to invest in preparing young people to cope with and mitigate the impacts of climate change, and they also emphasized the importance of adapting schools to this new reality. There were side events on #Youth4Adaptation at COP30, a Children & Youth Pavilion, and Youth-led Climate Forums. See the table below with our summary of the themes covered each day.

Further resources

If you want to learn more about COP30, have a look at the following:

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