Laurence Doering speaks on Litigating Sustainability panel at Paris Arbitration Week 2025

In April, Laurence Doering spoke on the "Litigating Sustainability" panel, hosted by Accuracy, at Paris Arbitration Week. 

He addressed the question: what role can litigation and arbitration play in accelerating the transition to a sustainable economy?  

Key takeaways include:  

1. Strategic litigation has been remarkably successful in applying general legal duties to environmental and human rights issues.  
2. The first wave of cases clarified that governments have a duty to combat climate change under international human rights law (e.g. Urgenda v Netherlands, Verein KlimaSeniorinnen v Switzerland). 
3. The current wave of litigation is targeting corporate behaviour. In the UK, there is a growing body of judgments holding that UK parent companies can owe a duty of care to communities affected by the operations of their overseas subsidiaries (Vedanta v Lungowe) and even their third-party suppliers (e.g. Limbu v Dyson).  
4. There is a virtuous circle between regulation by parliaments and the common law developed by the courts: regulations like the UK Modern Slavery Act and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive require companies to exercise greater levels of supervision over their supply chains, which in turn increases the likelihood that companies owe affected communities a duty of care under the common law.  
5. Arbitration can play a crucial and positive role. It provides affected communities overseas with direct recourse against companies at the end of the supply chain, where there is an arbitration agreement between them. A successful example is the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Garment and Textile Industry, which permits labour unions in Bangladesh and Pakistan to commence arbitration against international brands, if safety standards in their supplier factories are not adhered to. 

View the full recording of the discussion.