Mr. Xiang Liu is a prominent environmental lawyer and Lead of Litigation in the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims, which has pioneered environmental tort and public interest litigation in China. In his presentation, Mr. Liu focused on the possibility of developing climate change litigation based on air pollution law. First, he reviewed some of the successful air pollution public interest litigation cases brought in China in recent years, highlighting their climate co-benefits.

Iván Vargas-Roncancio is a Ph.D. candidate in Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University. His research involves an ethnographic study of indigenous practitioners, scientists, legal scholars, and ritual plants across territories, labs, and courts of justice in an effort to contribute to a larger paradigm shift surrounding the recognition of the rights of nature. In his presentation, Mr. Vargas-Roncancio explored the impacts of the rights of nature on the legal system and economic development in post-conflict Columbia.

Dörte Fouquet is Partner at Becker Buettner Held Law Firm. She is a recognized international expert in the areas of energy, environmental and competition law with extensive practice in the EU as she heads her firm’s Brussels team since 2011. In her presentation, Ms. Fouquet provided an overview of prominent European cases, focusing on the issue of admissibility.

Asghar Leghari is Partner at Leghari & Darguar in Pakistan. Alumni of the Duke University Law School, he has brought and given his name to the first successful climate lawsuit against a government in the global south. Mr. Leghari’s roundtable intervention focused on analyzing strategies and avenues of litigation for climate adaptation in Pakistan. He distinguished private and public litigation pathways, noticing that the private pathway faces a lot of obstacles stemming from the lack of adequate regulatory standards related to adaptation that can be applied by local courts.

Shengzhi Wang is Counsel from the Sunshine Law Firm’s Shanghai Office. His practice focuses on environmental compliance and transaction legal counseling, including for solar and wind energy project developers. In his presentation, he spoke about the rising concern about the environmental impact of renewable energy projects stemming from their rapid expansion and the increasingly comprehensive environmental protection system under which they operate in China.

Jinmei Liu is an environmental lawyer who has been leading the law and policy project of the Chinese Environmental NGO Friends of Nature since 2018. In her presentation, Ms Liu provided an overview of the current conditions for bringing climate-related lawsuits in China. Focusing on NGOs, she noted their critical importance since only them have brought such cases, even though, unlike public procuratorates and individuals, they can only sue private companies (not government) and have to demonstrate a damage to the public interest to prove standing.