The emerging trajectories of ecological litigation across Asia show the growing influence of courts, litigants and governance frameworks in shaping responses to global environmental damage and climate-related challenges. Drawing on perspectives from conservation governance, socio-legal research and environmental law, this webinar will assess the evolving approaches to assess the remedies obtained in these legal proceedings and the emerging role of value chain due diligence disputes, as well as the role of courts in interpreting industrial policies in climate litigation.
The event will facilitate discussions on how ecological conflicts are brought before the courts, exploring various legal approaches ranging from the integration of science and law, to state-driven judicial interpretations, and transnational corporate accountability. These insights will provide a basis for reflections on how litigation has been used to respond to ecological conflicts in Asian contexts, focusing on the types of remedies obtained from courts and by whom.
This event is a prelude to the fourth workshop of the ERC CURIAE VIRIDES project, which is being planned for the second half of 2026 in Southeast Asia. More information will be shared soon.
Time & Location
3 March 2026 , 12:00 – 14:00 CET (Brussels Time
Voltaire Room – Brussels School of Governance- Vrije Universiteit Brussel
About the event
Moderator: Kata Dozsa Postdoctoral Researcher at the ERC curiae Virides project BSoG
12:00 First Part: Environmental Accountability in Practice: Remedies for Harm and the Rise of Value Chain Disputes
- A Meaningful, Practical Approach to Remedies in Litigation for Environmental Harm – Jacob Phelps, Senior Lecturer in Conservation Governance at Lancaster Environment Center, Lancaster University, and Executive Director of Conservation-Litigation.org
- Environmental Value Chain Due Diligence Disputes in Asia – A Preliminary Mapping of Dispute Morphology – PhD Researcher João De Freitas, Brussels School of Governance (BSoG), ERC Curiae Virides project
Discussant: Claudia Ituarte-Lima Senior Researcher, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI), Director of the Global Network of Human Rights and the Environment.
12:45 Second part: Judicial Pathways in Asian Environmental Litigation
- Climate Litigation in China: Judicial Interpretations of Industrial Policies – Mingzhe Zhu, Senior Lecturer in Just Transition, School of Law, University of Glasgow
- Evolution of Remedies in A Decade of Indonesia Environmental Litigation – Rika Fajrini, PhD Candidate at the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies (GSGES), Kyoto University, Japan, and Senior Legal Researcher at Conservation-Litigation.org
Discussant: Francesca Leucci, Postdoc researcher at ETL – Institute for European Tort Law under the Austrian Academy of Sciences and at ZEP – Zentrum für Europäisches Privatrecht (Universität Graz). Associate Researcher at the Brussels School of Governance and at the Law Group of Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Concluding remarks and lunch