APCEL Researchers at ‘Securing Justice for the Planet’ Conference

On 18-19 March 2026, APCEL Post-Doctorate Fellow Justine Muller and Academic Fellow Justin Lim participated in the ‘Securing Justice for the Planet: Opportunities for, and barriers to, course correction’ conference hosted by Macquarie University. The conference was organised by the Environmental Law Research Centre at Macquarie University. It featured leading figures in environmental law and advocacy and junior scholars from across the world sharing their insights on the ways law can address the polycrisis posed by climate change, loss of biodiversity, and pollution.

Justin presented in ‘Session 2: Critical reflections on the triple advisory opinions’. His project, ‘Inseparable: Legal Duties for Climate Mitigation and Adaptation’, discussed how obligations for climate mitigation and adaptation in international law were legally inseparable, creating mutually reinforcing obligations to prepare ambitious targets, implement plans, and conduct holistic assessments in relation to both objectives. This has implications for state conduct in international law, but also for the way national institutions and courts approach and assess the two objectives.

Justine presented in ‘Session 6: Climate colonialism through trade law?’. Her project, ‘Non-regression of environmental law in trade agreements: A powerful tool waiting to be activated or an empty promise?’, analyses non-regression clauses in EU Free Trade Agreements in their legal and scientific contexts. Lack of clarifications on terms like ‘environmental laws’ and the challenges of evaluating ‘regression’ in environmental protection pose significant hurdles to the reliance of these clauses in trade disputes. However, she argues that while close attention to these challenges is necessary, a environment protection-oriented reading of these clauses by arbitrators is possible in the EU promotional approach to trade and sustainable development.