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Climate Justice through International Courts: Examples from the Pacific and Ukraine

Society and economy

Welcome to the 2025 edition of the Joakim Dungel Lectures for International Justice.

Lecture
Date
21 Feb 2025
Time
08:30 - 11:40
Location
Malmstensalen, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg - and on Zoom
Cost
Free event

Participants
Emilia Dungel, Chair, the Association in Memory of Joakim Dungel
Lena Gipperth, Deputy Dean, School of Business, Economics and Law
Alofipo So’oalo Fleur Ramsay, Blue Ocean Law
Stewart Motha, Faculty of Law, Birkbeck University
Gabriela Argüello, Department of Law, University of Gothenburg
Sari Kouvo, Department of Law, University of Gothenburg
Aonghus Kelly, Head of the International Crimes Legal Unit at the European Union Advisory Mission for Civilian Security Sector Reform in Ukraine (EUAM)
Joachim Åhman, Professor, Department of Law, University of Gothenburg

The responsibility of states to protect the climate system is an ongoing and continuously evolving topic. When international and national politics fall short of solutions for the climate crisis, states and non-state actors are turning to international law and its courts. The emerging cases and advisory opinions are shaping international law and jurisprudence.  

A coalition of 132 nations, led by the Republic of Vanuatu, has requested the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to provide an advisory opinion on states’ obligations to protect the climate system and their responsibility in harming it. Similarly, the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), upon request from the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS), has unequivocally confirmed that states have an obligation to prevent and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the impacts of climate change on the marine environment. Further, the Government of Ukraine-established High-Level Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War has published an Environmental Compact for Ukraine. This Compact identified accountability as one of its three priorities – reigniting discussions about the recognition of ecocide, the wilful and severe damage to the environment, as an international crime. 

Unpacking and analysing examples from these cases and beyond, the 2025 edition of the Joakim Dungel Lectures in International Justice will explore the role and limitations of international law, jurisprudence, and accountability in struggles for climate justice.

Agenda

08:30-08:45 Welcome and opening remarks 

Emilia Dungel, Chair, the Association in Memory of Joakim Dungel
Lena Gipperth, Deputy Dean, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg

08:45 Panel I: Climate Justice in the Pacific: The role of an advisory opinion of the ICJ and ITLOS  

Key questions: 

  • What can be expected from the advisory opinions from ICJ and ITLOS?  
  • How are the small island states in the Pacific maintaining their maritime zones and statehood? 
  • To what extent can the legal system attribute individual responsibility to states that have caused significant harm to the climate system? 
  • What impact can the advisory opinions have – also in combination with jurisprudence from, for example, the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights?  

Speakers

Alofipo So'oalo Fleur Ramsay, Blue Ocean Law (online)
Stewart Motha, Faculty of Law, Birkbeck University
Gabriela Argüello, Department of Law, University of Gothenburg  
Sari Kouvo, Department of Law, University of Gothenburg (Chair)  

10:00 Break

 

10:20 Panel II: Conflict-related environmental destruction in Ukraine: the role of national and international law

Key Questions:  

  • What are the current efforts – national and international – to ensure accountability for the environmental impact of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine? 
  • All wars are devastating for our climate and for the environment, what is needed to ensure accountability and rehabilitation?  
  • What role can courts play, including the International Criminal Court to ensure accountability for ‘ecocide’? 

Speakers:  

Aonghus Kelly, Head of the International Crimes Legal Unit at the European Union Advisory Mission for Civilian Security Sector Reform in Ukraine (EUAM) (online)
Stewart Motha, Faculty of Law, Birkbeck University
Sari Kouvo, Department of Law, University of Gothenburg 
Joachim Åhman, Department of Law, University of Gothenburg (Chair) 

11:30 – 11:40 Closing Remarks 

Sari Kouvo, Department of Law, University of Gothenburg 
Emilia Dungel, Chair, the Association in Memory of Joakim Dungel

Speakers

Gabriela Argüello, BA, LLM, JD, is an Associate Senior Lecturer at the Law Department at The University of Gothenburg . She is also a research fellow financed by The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. She specializes in the law of the sea and is a member of the European Marine Board on carbon dioxide removal and the Centre for Sea and Society. She has researched various topics: waste management, pesticides, ship recycling, ship source pollution, ocean governance, and energy transitions. 

Emilia Dungel, chairperson of the Association in Memory of Joakim Dungel. Emilia worked for UNDP in Belgrade, the Small Arms Survey in Geneva, and UNRWA in Jerusalem before embarking on her current role, at the Swedish Defence Research Agency. She holds an MA in Conflict, Security and Development from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and BAs in Political Science as well as Mandarin from Lund University. 

Lena Gipperth, Deputy Dean of the School of Business, Economics and Law at Gothenburg University is a Professor of Environmental Law with a focus on marine and water governance. She was the Director for the Center for Sea and Society, a transdisciplinary centre for marine research and education at the University of Gothenburg from 2015 to 2022.  

Aonghus Kelly, Head of the International Crimes Legal Unit at the European Union Advisory Mission for Civilian Security Sector Reform in Ukraine (EUAM). Over the past 16 years Aonghus has worked in various international settings on international crimes, human rights, organised crime and the rule of law including on the Baha Mousa Public Inquiry in the United Kingdom (UK) concerning events in Iraq, with the State Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Special Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Kosovo, as well as at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (commonly known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal). Aonghus has also practised law in both Ireland and England and has worked with Global Legal Action Network (GLAN).

Sari Kouvo, LLM, JD, is an Associate Professor at the Law Department at the University of Gothenburg. Sari currently serves as Climate, Environment and Security Policy Officer at the European External Action Service in Brussels. Her previous engagements include, co-director of Afghanistan Analysts Network, head of program at the International Centre for Transitional Justice, adviser to the EU Special Representative for Afghanistan and lecturing at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Kent University, Birkbeck University and Gothenburg university. She holds a doctorate in International Law from Gothenburg University (Sweden).

Stewart Motha, Professor of Law, Birkbeck, University of London. Stewart was Executive Dean of Birkbeck Law School, 2016-22; and Managing Editor of Law & Critique, 2015-2020. In 2023, held the John Hinkley Visiting Professorship at Johns Hopkins University and he has held visiting fellowships at Sydney Law School, Melbourne Law School, and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS). Stewart’s current major project explores the multiple forms and sources of legal norms, breaking down the historical separation between law and nature. This research is linked to questions of climate justice and legal responses to ecological crises. 

Alofipo So'oalo Fleur Ramsay is an international indigenous and human rights lawyer and has extensive experience as an environmental and climate justice lawyer in Australia and across Oceania. Prior to joining Blue Ocean Law, Fleur spearheaded the creation of two indigenous-led programs at a peak Australian mainstream environmental law firm. Fleur has been bestowed the chiefly orator titles of Alofipo from the Sale’aula village and So’oalo from Samauga village, both on the island of Savaii in Samoa. Fleur was recently appointed as a Visiting Professor of Practice at Birkbeck Law School, University of London. Fleur is also on the Steering Committee of the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty and a founder of the Pasifika International Lawyers network. 

Joachim Åhman, professor of public international law in the Department of Law, University of Gothenburg. He received a LLB and a LLM from Lund University (2004), a BA in history from the University of Gothenburg (2008), a LLD in public international law from the University of Gothenburg (2011), and has been appointed docent in the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg (2017). He has been a visiting research fellow at Columbia Law School. He is the course coordinator for the advanced course HRS198 Public International Law, offered during the second half of the autumn semester. 

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