Vance Center Co-Hosts Climate Week NYC Panel on Climate Justice in the Courts

L-R: Kelsey Jost-Creegan, Sarah Sax, Adam Weiss, Jovana Ríos Cisnero, Cristel de León, and Nathalya Desterro after the panel discussion at the New York City Bar Association, September 25, 2025. Photo credit: Vance Center

On September 25, the Vance Center, Women’s Link Worldwide, and the Smith Family Human Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School co-hosted a panel discussion, “Climate Justice in the Courts: Centering Communities, Women and Girls, and Human Rights in Legal Responses to the Climate Crisis.”

The panel featured insights from human rights practitioners, lawyers, and advocates on strategies to decolonize the law and ensure decisions from international and high-level tribunals have a meaningful impact for the communities most affected by the climate crisis.

Vance Center Environment Program Advisor Nathalya Desterro welcomed the panelists and a standing-room-only crowd of more than 50 attendees to the New York City Bar Association.

In her introductory remarks, Desterro presented a brief overview of the Vance Center’s work on climate litigation and pro bono projects that further climate justice, including the Program’s work on recent amicus brief submissions to international tribunals and legal toolkits for women land rights defenders.

Desterro then introduced moderator Sarah Sax, a journalist and human rights researcher with Climate Rights International.

Sax opened the discussion with a nod to the power of storytelling on climate issues. She acknowledged that personal stories help move the public to act on behalf of climate justice, and noted that “harms are not evenly distributed” in the climate crisis.

The four panelists offered different perspectives on the issue, drawing on their individual backgrounds and approaches to climate justice.

Kelsey Jost-Creegan, Deputy Director and Senior Supervising Staff Attorney at Columbia Law School’s Smith Family Human Rights Clinic, discussed how human rights frameworks can be – and increasingly are being – used effectively to strengthen climate cases. She highlighted how communities affected by climate change have pushed for greater participation and recognition of procedural rights in legal proceedings before international tribunals like the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Communities’ more central role in climate law has led to recent successes like the integration of human rights law in environmental frameworks such as the Escazú Agreement and pushing back on legal frameworks that have enabled corporations to operate with minimal transparency in Special Economic Zones. Jost-Creegan emphasized that lawyers in other jurisdictions can draw important lessons from these participatory approaches, looking to effective methodologies that have been used by communities in countries like Honduras, and apply them to their own proceedings.

Adam Weiss, Chief Programmes and Impact Officer at ClientEarth, shared takeaways from the organization’s recent efforts on climate litigation, including its amicus curiae submission to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Request for an Advisory Opinion on the Climate Emergency and Human Rights by Chile & Colombia. He underscored the power of litigation to “flip the narrative” and its role as an effective tool to enforce compliance with climate commitments, particularly when contending with powerful companies that are responsible for many human rights and climate abuses and rarely face accountability.

The Vance Center also submitted an amicus brief with Milbank on behalf of three United Nations Special rapporteurs to the Court for its Advisory Opinion. Read more about the amicus here.

Weiss cited examples from the United Kingdom, Australia, and other recent court decisions that acknowledged the human rights impact of pollution and climate change and provided pathways for future litigation. He emphasized the importance of cross-border collaboration between lawyers in different regions to share ideas and best practices, while noting that each case is distinct.

Cristel de León, a lawyer and human rights defender with Espacio Encuentro de Mujeres in Panama, spoke about her efforts with communities impacted by the climate crisis, especially women and girls. She shared her firsthand experience of how climate injustice disproportionately affects communities that already face other types of repression or rights violations, and emphasized the need for a feminist, intersectional approach that prioritizes the safety and dignity of vulnerable individuals.

As human rights lawyers and advocates consider climate cases, de León said, they must connect with the impacted communities and hear their perspectives on how the law can best serve them. She advocated for a greater commitment to longer-term “accompaniment” for communities, not just during the legal proceedings.

Jovana Ríos Cisnero, Executive Director of Women’s Link Worldwide, framed the conversation on climate justice within a broader regional movement of community-led advocacy to uphold human rights. She offered insights into her organization’s approach to advancing gender justice through strategic litigation and advocacy with an intersectional approach, underscoring how decolonizing law in practice means seeing those harmed by systems of oppression not as victims, but as agents of change who must “be protagonists of their own stories.”

Ríos emphasized Women’s Link’s key role in ensuring Indigenous and community voices were present throughout the Inter-American Court of Human Rights advisory opinion process. The organization submitted an oral amicus brief to the Court, using this innovative strategy to ensure those voices were front and center as the Court considered its decision.

She noted that “accessing justice is not the easy process we sometimes think it is” from a legal perspective or when viewed from beyond the affected communities. While litigation is a powerful tool, she reminded attendees that it is just one of a set of tools, and should be implemented alongside other approaches that take a comprehensive view of social justice, human rights, and autonomy.