The learning never stops in our programme, and we continuously link our students with relevant events in central London (in addition to embedding field trips to legal institutions, law courts and law firms in London as part of curricular activity). We invited our students to attend a film screening, Q & A and launch of a Legal Empowerment project at global law firm Simmons and Simmons, on October 25. We were delighted to hear that a few of them managed to attend in person, while others watched the livestream.

The event was put together by Lawyers Against Poverty (LAP), Simmons & Simmons, The Alliance for Lawyers at Risk, Action4Justice and Peace Brigades International UK. The wider project aims to bridge the gap between the climate justice and human rights movements and the international legal community, and asks the question of whether tackling climate change can be seen as a human rights issue (we asked the same question in our annual human rights lecture 2021, with the UK Judge at the European Court of Human Rights, Tim Eicke QC).

Year 3 student, Olivia Burns, who attended the event from the offices of Simmons and Simmons, explained that the event “drew a parallel between human rights and climate justice” that would be “useful to reference in work [she] will be submitting in the Human Rights Law & Clinic module this year”. Olivia added that the event “raised some interesting discussions about the realities/difficulties of enforcing human rights rulings in isolated and exploited communities – particularly when your fight is against states and powerful corporations”, and that it also “looked at our spiritual connection with land and how that may impact how ownership is viewed by indigenous communities versus the corporations trying to use the land”.