The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA is seeking a Legal Advisor for its Europe location. Working closely with the Executive Director, the Legal Advisor will contribute to all aspects of the Institute’s development, with a focus on legal research and drafting as well as project management. As a key member of a small team in a fast-developing Institute, the Legal Advisor must be able to work independently and to take a leadership role on relevant initiatives. This is an exciting opportunity for a talented human rights lawyer to contribute their skills and expertise to empowering the next generation of human rights lawyers, scholars and leaders, and transforming the promise of human rights into a reality for more people around the world.

In The First Ecocide Treaty? (EJIL:Talk!, June 2025), Daniel Bertram traces the shifting legal definitions of ecocide from the 1970s to today, advocating for a definition that is both flexible and forward-looking. His analysis emphasises the importance of including reckless acts and omissions, while cautioning against rigid cost-benefit limitations.

Nature Matters, edited by Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf, gathers African, Asian, and Caribbean diaspora voices to reimagine environmentalism and ecopoetics. Woolf, our 2020 Poet in Residence at the UCLA Promise Institute, explored the intersections of poetry, law, and capitalism’s impacts on marginalised communities.

In A Barrister for the Earth, pioneering barrister Monica Feria-Tinta takes us behind the scenes of landmark legal cases defending rivers, forests, and endangered species. Feria-Tinta, a distinguished speaker at our 2024 launch conference, shared insights into the groundbreaking ITLOS Advisory Opinion on climate change.

We are seeking an Executive Director to help lead and advance our mission to provide the premier legal education in the field of human rights, empower the next generation of human rights lawyers, scholars and leaders, and to transform the promise of human rights into a reality for more people around the world.

The landmark opinion handed down by the world’s highest court on Wednesday sets a new framework for legal efforts to address the climate emergency.

We were delighted to see the neglected climate impacts of armed conflict addressed by US Judge Cleveland in her Declaration.

Our ED Kate Mackintosh was in the courtroom of the International Court of Justice yesterday to hear the delivery of the historic Advisory Opinion on Climate Change. Among other significant findings, the Court held that States are under a binding legal obligation to protect the climate system; that there is a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment which is essential for the enjoyment of other human rights, and that the principle of non-refoulement applies to people who have been forced to leave their country due to climate change.  

International Conference on Ecocide, Human Rights, and Environmental Justice  

📆 31 October 2025 

📍 Senate House, London 

Mark your calendars for a landmark gathering at the intersection of law, human rights, and the protection of the planet: the Ecocide, Human Rights, and Environmental Justice Conference taking place on 31 October 2025 in London. 

🚨 Late last week the IACtHR issued a landmark Advisory Opinion on the climate emergency and human rights. The Opinion marks a major step forward in articulating the ways the climate emergency is related to human rights harms. Crucially, the Opinion also* establishes obligations and standards which States must meet in response to the climate emergency — obligations set according to the standards of international human rights law. 👏👏👏

The shootings at the GHF food distributions in Gaza, at which over 500 people have already been killed and thousands injured, are a violation of core humanitarian principles and can be considered a potential war crime, says our Executive Director Kate Mackintosh.
In an interview with Al Jazeera this morning she warns that GHF staff may be complicit in these war crimes and could potentially be prosecuted by many states around the world.

🟠 Webinar Announcement: Introducing Ecocide – Towards a New International Crime
📅 Wednesday, July 2, 2025
🕛 12:00–1:30 PM ET
📍 Online (free & open to all)

We’re pleased to share an important upcoming webinar hosted by the International Human Rights Committees of the American Bar Association (ABA) Sections on Civil Rights & Social Justice and International Law. This session will explore the legal, procedural, and moral case for recognizing ecocide as an international crime.

Immigration is a broad and complex topic. With his book Borders and Belonging, Professor Hiroshi Motomura offers a framework that helps deepen the conversation and foster meaningful dialogue, identifying the overlapping but distinct claims of humanity and belonging.

Our Executive Director, Kate Mackintosh joined a distinguished gathering in the margins of the United Nations Oceans Conference in Nice to discuss the importance of creating a crime of Ecocide.

Hosted by the states of Vanuatu and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the event included ministers, government officials and MPs from Ghana, Guatemala and Tahiti, united in their commitment to end the destruction of our shared environment.

Ecocide in Peru: Repsol and the Colonial Regime of Permission, Ignasi Bernat Molina, Environmental Politics (May 2025).

This paper examines the 2022 Repsol oil spill in Peru as a case study, demonstrating how the disaster resulted from long-term decisions by both Spanish and Peruvian states. It argues that ecocide must be understood within a colonial matrix that enriches fossil capital while creating conditions for ecological destruction.

Thanks to the stellar work of our research assistants Ava Schuster and John Dover, our annotated bibliography on international criminal law and environmental protection is fully updated! We’re excited to share the most powerful reads we have come across. Today’s highlight:

The Destruction of Indigenous Communities’ Landscapes: An Aggravated Form of Ecocide? Jérôme de Hemptinne & Helena Szczupak, EJIL:Talk! (May 2025)

This piece explores whether peacetime industrial destruction of Indigenous landscapes constitutes an aggravated form of ecocide.

Our Executive Director Kate Mackintosh was honoured to assist Monica Lennon as a member of her expert advisory committee. She spoke to BBC Radio Scotland to explain the bill.

Date: June 12, 17:00 – 21:00 
Location: International Institute for Social Studies (ISS), The Hague 

Please join us on June 12 for a seminar featuring UCLA Law Professor Hiroshi Motomura, who will present his most recent book: 

Borders and Belonging – Toward a Fair Immigration Policy

Part 7: Liability of Legal Entities, Corporate Workers and Public Servants

Some new ecocide laws create liability for companies as well as individuals. These include those in the EU, Belgium and France. 

This means that the legal entity as a whole, as opposed to natural persons within it, can be held accountable for environmental harm. This is important at the national level, where individuals might hide behind the “veil” of the corporate structure to avoid liability. 

Part 6: Creation of Harm or Risk?

Some crimes consist in bringing about harmful consequences, while others consist of creating a risk of harm. These offences of “endangerment,” are committed regardless of whether the harm materialises. 

Part 5: The Mental Element

Mens rea refers to the criminal intent or awareness a suspect has regarding the wrongfulness of their actions. In cases of environmental harm, the issue of mens rea is complex since potential violators rarely aim to cause environmental damage; rather, harm is a byproduct of profit-driven activities. 

Part 4: The Unlawfulness of Conduct

There is currently a debate over how a crime of ecocide at national level should relate to other environmental laws and regulations. If an act is not in violation of environmental regulations, can it still constitute the crime? This is less relevant at the international level, as the fact that something is permitted under national law does not exclude it from being an international crime.