Description

Who should pay for climate change? This question lies at the core of one of the most pressing global challenges today, calling for urgent action and legal innovation to address its far-reaching impacts. In recent years, the rise of corporate climate litigation, driven by advancements in climate science, has become a powerful tool in holding corporations accountable for environmental harm. In this talk, Dr Ekaterina Aristova will present findings from a comprehensive review of climate-related lawsuits involving corporations across various jurisdictions, identifying key trends, patterns and legal strategies. She will explore the challenges and complexities that arise in litigating corporate responsibility for climate change. Drawing on comparative findings from a workshop held in November 2023 in Oxford, the talk will also provide insights for the Asia-Pacific region, offering lessons from global cases that may guide future legal approaches in addressing corporate climate accountability across this diverse region.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr Ekaterina (Katya) Aristova is a Research Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights (Faculty of Law, University of Oxford). Her research interests are in the field of business and human rights, with a particular focus on strategic human rights and environmental litigation. Ekaterina examines how conventional private law doctrines evolve in response to global challenges and are used creatively in different jurisdictions to foster human rights and environmental accountability. Ekaterina is a co-editor of ‘Civil Remedies and Human Rights in Flux’ (Hart Publishing 2022) and ‘Civil Liability for Human Rights Violations: A Handbook for Practitioners’ (Bonavero Institute of Human Rights 2022). She is also an author of ‘Tort Litigation against Transnational Corporations in the English Courts: The Challenge of Jurisdiction’ (OUP 2024), a revised manuscript of a PhD thesis completed at the University of Cambridge. In 2022, Ekaterina was awarded a prestigious Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship to complete a project on climate change litigation against corporations.