02 October 2025
The Environmental and Health Impacts of Animal Source Foods
It is now well-established that our diets and the food systems underpinning them have substantial impacts on both our health and the environment. What is also clear is that without dietary changes towards more balanced and predominantly plant-based diets, there is little chance of limiting global warming, biodiversity loss, and environmental resource use and pollution more generally. This contribution summarises research on the environmental, health, and social aspects related to changes in diets and food systems with a particular focus on the role of animal source foods. Continue reading >>
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01 October 2025
Defund Meat: A Call for Transformative Meat Governance
“Defund Meat” may be an unusual and perhaps provocative title for a critical interdisciplinary discussion around meat in the Anthropocene. At first blush, it may sound like a crude activist slogan, or a hopelessly idealistic call for abolishing the meat system. Upon closer examination, however, it turns out to be a sheep in wolf’s clothing. As I shall argue, defunding meat is a much more commonsensical, pragmatic, and mainstream(able) proposition than its radical overtone might initially suggest. Continue reading >>
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18 September 2025
The ECJ’s Opportunity to Address the EU’s Climate Mitigation Obligations
The pending EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement raises fundamental questions regarding the Union’s climate mitigation obligations under both EU and international law. Members of the European Parliament are considering a request for an opinion from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the agreement’s compatibility with EU law. Such a review is warranted, as the agreement appears incompatible with the EU’s mitigation duties. Continue reading >>
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11 September 2025
International Law’s Administrative Law Turn and the Paris Agreement
In the recent Advisory Opinion on States’ Obligations in respect of Climate Change, various remarks by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) lean into an increasingly “administrative” law turn in international law. In this blog post, we investigate this phenomenon by looking at the ways in which States’ preparation, communication, and maintenance of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement are coming to be characterised by requirements or standards with a domestic administrative law tone. Continue reading >>
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09 September 2025
A Step Forward in Italian Climate Litigation
Climate litigation achieved an important milestone in Italy. In a landmark order on 18 July 2025, the Supreme Court of Cassation confirmed that Italian courts may assert jurisdiction over climate-related damages for the first time. The ruling opens the door to holding both public and private actors liable for climate inaction. Continue reading >>
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28 August 2025
Can Africa Still Drill?
While the ICJ found that any State suffering from climate change can bring charges against others for their contribution to climate change, the opinion does not distinguish between the obligations of developed and developing States (except where treaty law already imposes different obligations). African States and the African Union have continued to support fossil fuel development on the continent. In light of this advisory opinion, what obligations are imposed on developing States, like African States, to protect the climate, particularly regarding the further development of fossil fuel industries? Continue reading >>26 August 2025
Closing the Silences
At COP 30 in Belém, ministers will wrangle over how “sufficient” the new climate-finance goal must be, and whether “phase-down” of coal is a slogan or a legal trigger. In Brussels, the 2040 climate target faces the same test, while in Geneva, the WTO’s fossil-subsidy reform stalls over which tax breaks to cut. Read through a strict consent-only lens, and these are political choices. Read through the ICJ’s frame – science, equity, no-harm, precaution – they become legal ones: finance must be capable of delivering 1.5°C and repairing loss and damage, coal and subsidy policies must be plausibly 1.5°C-compatible, and the burden falls on governments to prove it. Continue reading >>
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26 August 2025
Klimaschutz in Karlsruhe 5.0
Vor kurzem ließen mehrere Pressemitteilungen deutscher Umweltverbände Verfassungsrechtler:innen aufhorchen. Die vom Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND), Greenpeace, Germanwatch, dem Solarenergie-Förderverein Deutschland und der Deutschen Umwelthilfe (DUH) im Sommer/Herbst 2023 eingereichten „Zukunftsklagen“ werden in Karlsruhe offenbar ernst genommen. Im weiteren Verfahren könnte auch das kürzlich ergangene Gutachten des Internationalen Gerichtshofs (IGH) zu völkerrechtlichen Verpflichtungen der Staaten mit Bezug zum Klimawandel eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Continue reading >>19 August 2025
Is Montevideo Sinking?
Following the ICJ’s opinion, only time will tell whether the Montevideo criteria are themselves “sinking,” and what might replace them. It remains doubtful whether sunken States could be sovereign equals to States with territory, as they would necessarily rely on the goodwill of their host State to cede jurisdiction to some degree. Even though the ICJ’s opinion is a big step forward (especially) for small island States, it cannot, by itself, preserve a State’s full sovereignty once its territory is submerged. Small island States have contributed the least to climate change, yet now face an existential threat. This unfair fate must be prevented. I Continue reading >>
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19 August 2025
Statehood in the Climate Crisis
In this blog post, we zero in on the part of the ICJ's climate advisory opinion that concerns statehood. Specifically, we analyze the ICJ’s restatement of the presumption of state continuity, examining both what the Court says and doesn’t say, and what the implications could be. We also consider the individual opinions that discuss statehood and add some brief reflections on the applicability of Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (Montevideo Convention) and on State extinction. Our analysis is preliminary, and certainly much ink will be spilled on the ICJ’s remarks going forward. Continue reading >>
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