Climate Change and the Rule of Law Conference | Session 7: Climate Change and Business

This two day conference was organised by the UCL Centre for Law and Environment and took place on Thursday 31 March - Friday 1 April 2022.

This major conference brought together key thinkers, including scholars, policymakers, civil society representatives, legal practitioners, judges and PhD students, to reflect on the connections and tensions between the rule of law and climate change.

There are many and complex links between the climate crisis and rule of law. Without rule of law values, any sustained response to climate change is increasingly difficult, whilst the instability threatened by climate change may place rule of law values at risk. In a quick-fire round of five minute contributions, we begin to set out the centrality of rule of law to our current crisis, from diverse functional and geographical perspectives.

This session on 'Climate Change and Business' was chaired by Dr Megan Bowman (King's College London) and speakers include:

- Richard Harvey (Greenpeace International)
Corporate accountability for the climate crisis: how people-powered
lawsuits are hastening the demise of fossil fuels

- Dan Leader (Leigh Day):
The developing legal landscape on parent company liability - is corporate
impunity drawing to a close?

- Professor Christine Parker (University of Melbourne):
From ‘corporate governance’ to ecological regulation: flipping the
regulatory story on climate change