Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Welcome everybody to this session of the Mishcon Academy. For those joining for the first time, the Academy is our series of talks hosted by Mishcon de Reya, looking at the biggest issues facing society today and, I am absolutely delighted to have Monica Feria-Tinta here today as our guest. Before I introduce her properly, a quick word about who I am and why the hell I’m here. I’m Laurie Doering, I’m a managing associate at Mishcons, in our firm’s sustainability and human rights practice called Mishcon Purpose. Just two quick housekeeping rules, uh housekeeping points please. The first is that if you’re online you’ve joined on mute automatically with your camera off so no worries there. There’ll be some time for questions at the end. If you’re online please use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. If you’re in the room, please raise your hand. Thank you. Monica, um, Monica Feria-Tinta is the author of this beautiful book, ‘A Barrister for the Earth’ – ten cases of hope for our future which was published by Faber in 2025 and has been shortlisted for the Westminster Book Awards 2026 which is the award for best political writing voted on by sitting members of parliament. So very good luck for that. Monica is a barrister at 20 Essex where she specialises in all aspects of public international law, acting both as Counsel and as Arbitrator in international arbitrations. She was finalist for Barrister of the Year in the Lawyer Awards 2025 and was Woman of the Year at the Women and Diversity and Law Awards 2025. So a star studded CV, that’s just the top of the, that’s just the latest of your achievements. And she’s been referred to as one of Britain’s most dazzling legal minds. I’ll do a very abbreviated version of your cv if I may because it is a fascinating one. You were born in Lima in Peru where you studied law, you did your, your undergraduate degree there and then you came to London in your 20s as a refugee?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
You were fleeing the bloody civil war in Peru and the dictatorship there and you came and did an LLM, did some post graduate studies at the London School of Economics just down the road from here. This was followed by further training across Europe, in all areas of public and international law, in Geneva, Strasbourg, Hamburg and Finland and you then started your legal practice in the international courts, first at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia and then at the ICJ, International Court of Justice. In 2014 you were called to the Bar.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Mm hm.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
And according to Wikipedia you were the first Latin American to be called to the Bar in England and Wales. I just wanted to check if that’s right because it made me feel very parochial.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
It is right.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Astonishing. Now as a barrister you’ve had many, many successes. I just want to highlight one. You made legal history in 2022 when, with the Torres Strait Islanders case before the UN Human Rights Council.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Committee.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
UN Human Rights Committee, thank you. Which was the first recognition by an international judicial body of the applicability of human rights law to the issue of climate change and the thinking that you applied in that case sort of laid the groundwork for doctrinal developments that were later adopted by other tribunals including ITLOS and the ICJ. A Barrister for the Earth is your first book and it’s made a splash way beyond legal circles. You’ve been featured on the BBC, Private Passions where you shared your favourite playlists and you’ve featured in British Vogue. So this is more than most of us can aspire to in several lifetimes so, and that’s just the abbreviated version. Monica welcome, thank you for joining us. Following on from, from that last point, I wondered, you wrote this book in a way that is really accessible to the general public and it makes the issues of international law and the rights of nature accessible to wider public. Why is it that you wanted to do that?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Um, so this was not the first book I wrote, I have written legal books but this was the first book that I wrote for a general public and I think what made me write the book was really anger because I had been, my practice is very broad, as you have mentioned, um, but I had been developing a practice on environmental law since the beginning of my coming to the bar. I worked for a little while doing my pupillage in a case that concerned group litigation in Technology Court here in England. And it was against BP. It was a very, very, um, sophisticated case that I was in Court for five months. So this really opened my eyes to, um, very sophisticated ways of dispute resolution, um, here was against a particular company but it was amazing to me that you could resolve disputes in England using applicable law from Columbia, for example.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Mm.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
But that was completely new for me and, um, it really showed me how, uh, it was possible to, um, perhaps engage with justice processes, you know, in a number of ways and how the common law, um, permitted all of that. So after a while practicing in environmental law, and I pick up ten stories in the book, I had experience of working a particular case concerning a coal mine in Columbia and by then we already had the Paris Agreement, uh, which many of you know that it’s been really a key instrument to, um, address climate change. Back then, um, nobody really thought that we could do something beyond the meetings that the States had in Paris. So post Paris, and everything was just on a diplomatic level so, um, what is interesting is that the first people that were interested in what to do with it was not really NGOs, was not really, you know, sectors that came from, it was the business sector. So I was approached by, um, the arbitral community. I was approached in 2015 by the PCA, by the ICC, by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, who invited me to deliver a paper and discuss the possibilities of enforcing the Paris Agreement. Whether it was possible to enforce that by other mechanisms, including arbitration. That is what set me into that kind of question of, is this possible? Um, and so the book tells a little bit about the journey because I wanted, I wanted the average person to realise how powerful the law was. When, when I started thinking about this I never thought what would be the path. But eventually when I realised how the law was so, um, malleable and so, um, able to respond to new challenges that I felt that it had to be shared with the wider public than just lawyers. So that’s how the book came about.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
And, um, the issue that you pick up which is a wider issue really is, has the law lost its path at some point by becoming too focussed on humans and human rights at the expense of the wider rights of nature and you, you ask the question, could there be a paradigm shift from an anthropocentric approach to law, to an ecocentric one? What do you mean by that?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yeah so that is a fundamental question here in the book. Um, you know, I had never thought before about how anthropocentric our law was. I don’t know how many of you have ever stopped to consider that but I, I hadn’t. Um, so I want to actually state at the outset, I was never, um, a campaigner or I was never even, you know, someone particularly conscientious about green issues ever in my life and I’m quite honest in the book when I speak about my background when it comes to completely oblivious about lots of things and how my work actually helped me to discover a lot about our, um, the connections, you know, and how complex really globally the whole issue of environmental matters are. And I think that, um, I mean, it’s really to, to, to think about how the law has moved. I apply a little bit of my knowledge on international law. I, I realise when I worked on the Torres Strait case that something massive was happening. So just before the Torres Strait there had been a case in the Americas and it was by the Inuit’s in 2005 which went nowhere. So basically everything was melting and I read the actually petition that was very well drafted, about 150 pages, and it went nowhere. It, it was not even registered and I read that very carefully, and I studied that very carefully because, um, to me this was all very new back then. And I realised that what were the gaps? And I really wanted to crack the code, I thought what, what kind of approach will make a case like this win? Because what I realised is that the melting of the ice of the Inuit’s was directly connected with the sea level rise that my clients years later were experiencing. So I guess, um, what you can see there is that it was a matter of really step back and consider carefully whether the law was able to give a solution, you know, to, to something like that. So that, that’s something that really set me on that path to, to reassess, to reassess what was, what was happening and to reassess the instruments that we had available. Um, I think that that was just the beginning of, of something really big to come later.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
So the legal problem with the Torres Strait Islands, if you could just bring us into that, back, back in time.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Sure, sure.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Your clients were First Nation Australians?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Living on a string of islands between the North coast of Australia and Indonesia. And what was their problem?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
So the problem was that, um, the islands were sinking, uh, there were different islands and each island has, uh, specificities. They were all different. What was happening is that, um, this was actually something that they’ve been raising. Uh, they went to the Government. They tried, you know, to get attention. Uh, and the first probably petition was that, um, the erosion of the, the sea, the sea level was really going very, very quickly, was affecting everything that they knew in the island from, uh, really, um, they have for example, gardens that would disappeared. And, and they actually described the islands like going clockwise, you know, moving. Now I didn’t understand that and I thought when I read the statement, is this real? Um, but when I went to, to Germany, to, to the island of Sylt, I realised that, ah ha, this is, this is, this happens. So the sand has to be stabilised, uh and it was stabilised in Germany with certain techniques, for example, growing certain plants that could actually make sure that with the erosion the sand wouldn’t just go and, and the island wouldn’t move in the way that was happening in Torres Strait. So in the Torres Strait they didn’t have any measures. They were trying to get the Government to do something about it, already for 10 years by the time that I was instructed in the case. So it would appear that the only thing to do was to, um, you know, bring a claim so to get accountability for inaction. And something to remark in this particular case, it was not just about the land. So as an international lawyer, the way you look at islands is that islands fundamentally are connected to the sea. You never see them just as territory. Part of the territory is the maritime territorial aspects of it that are connected to the island. So for the Torres Strait islanders, the sea was part of their ancestral territory, and a lot of the species that were living in that territory were disappearing and everything was changing so they, they couldn’t tell anymore the weather. That’s how they put it. Um, so, so this was it. I mean, this was, this was the first case that started making me understand how rapidly nature was, you know, deteriorating together with, um, the life that we human beings connected to the land were experiencing so at no point the Torres Strait Islanders felt separate from, from the land or, or, they actually felt that this was, they couldn’t be alive and have, have a normal life if they were to move somewhere else. They were deeply connected to that particular ancestral territory. Um, and that was a peculiarity of that case. So you couldn’t just, you know, well why don’t we just take them to island B. No because all their very identity and dignity was connected to, to that place. So, so this, this really started to teach me about issues of how rapidly the natural world was being affected negatively, um, and, and then later when I, when I was involved the Ecuadorian case, um, the Los Cedros case, I, I started thinking more clearly about the limitations of anthropocentric perspective of the law. So you asked me before, what is it? So all our laws, all our laws have been thought from the perspective of human beings. How that benefits us, or protects us etcetera. Um, that has a limitation and the way I saw that is that in a big crisis like last century when we had, um, crisis against humanity at a level that we hadn’t ever experienced in the world with Holocaust. There was this clear understanding that life needs to be protected and we have all these fantastic instruments, um, human rights instruments that were adopted. And that was good. But at the same time I felt that there was a limit here because the way life was protected was as the life of human beings, it’s the right to life of human beings. So when I read all these instruments I could see that there was no mentioning to the environment or the natural world. So basically, the law protected us as human beings in the conception that human beings didn’t need any of that in some kind of vacuum. So now, you know, I realised that and environmental law started developing much later, much later. Soft law only, uh, during the 70s and onwards and it was still looking at nature from a perspective of resources. I hate that word really. Um, and, and at some point in 1982 we had the Charter for the Earth which was actually the first ecocentric, um, instrument that was, um, adopted by the General Assembly with 111 votes. The UK voted in favour of this and if you read that instrument, it’s a fabulous thing. It really, um, really, I think, marks a direction that we should have taken. Ten years later we had the Rio Declaration, which got, which went back to the anthropocentric perspective. And I think now we are, and this is my experience, a litigator speaking, uh, at the point where Courts are starting to see the connection between the natural world and humans again. Because we have had a lot of decisions where we can see that, um, we cannot distinguish that, we cannot separate that. So environmental law I predicted that about six years ago, we are going to leave massive amounts of environmental disputes in the next decade. That’s what I said, in, in a piece I wrote and this is exactly what has happened. And I think we are in that trajectory still, now.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
And I think the book tells the story because the chapters, the cases are roughly in chronological order. I know the first one is, is out of order but apart from that…
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
…you, you tell that story and, um, when I read it, I saw it as, you know, the Torres Strait case is the attempt to bring an ecocentric approach into human rights law, right? The environment is changing, as you described, the islands are turning, the species are disappearing and that is a violation of the islanders’ human rights. Their human rights are affected by the changes to their environment.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
But it isn’t until the Los Cedros case that you move beyond human rights completely.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
And you are actually enforcing the rights of nature itself and, um, could you tell us about that case because it’s, it’s, as an international lawyer it’s unusual because you are, you are intervening in domestic proceedings weren’t you, in Ecuador?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Under the Constitution of Ecuador?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Um, and that Constitution is also a ground breaking piece of law because it is the first one, you write, the first Constitution that adopts a properly ecocentric approach and I’ve got one very short I promise, uh, quote from it, Article 71 which says, Nature where life is reproduced and occurs has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its lifecycles, structures, functions and evolutionary processes. So nature is the rights holder?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Could you tell us about that case and how you came to be involved in enforcing those rights on behalf of nature?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes, um, so you have this fantastic Constitution, right, from 2008 and there had been already some cases, um, at a lower level, um, on rise of nature, in particular river. But the Constitutional Court had never decided on a case and the Constitutional Court picked up that case, and it was a case that it was unremarkable in a certain sense because, you know, this is a story that happens in Latin America all the time and in many parts of the world all the time which is that you have the wonderful, uh, forest threatened with a particular development. It happened that in this case, uh, the development was a gold mine and the forest was, uh, one that had a lot of endemic species. Um, the closeness to the Ecuador, Ecuador line, um, meant that this place is a very special place when it came to, to biodiversity. Now how I became involved was really as an, amicus curiae which is really a role where you, as a lawyer, present an independent analysis of the law to assist the Court in their determination of the case. Um, so when I got the papers I was invited to be an amicus. Um, when I received the papers I realised I was looking for some people around, so I was trying to find whether there were communities that would be affected by this mine, mining project etcetera. And I didn’t see anyone in the forest at the place that could be affected. So really it was just the forest. And I looked into the forest and started identifying all the species and then I started really a fascinating journey because I, I will never forget, um, it was a really during Covid, so I was really immersed in that, into that forest. I mean, that was my world for a couple of weeks and I, um, I started really, uh, diving into the reality of the archives, or of the, you know, the monkeys or the um, bear, the Paddington bear or the, um, Andean bears as we know that, and these species over there and, and understanding that they were very fragile and that really these species were disappearing. So basically in that little forest, um, in a little space like this you could find a species that you couldn’t find anywhere else in the world. And that really touched me. So it is, it is with, with marvel that I realised that I was acting really on behalf of nature itself and that my role was to put this in front of the Court to explain what was, what was at stake here. Um, and that was fascinating because I used all the international law I knew to argue this, the case for, for the forest, for nature. And what was peculiar about the case is that you, you may say, well but there the Constitution already so why is it that it was not already protected and, but you know how the law is. You know, everything has to be, uh, defined properly so this was not a forest that had been designated as to attracting that level of protection. So it was like, you know, certain places you can, okay, that, that’s alright. To maybe to develop or etcetera. So the role was to say, although it’s not, it doesn’t matter what defines the need for protection was the actual identity of the forest. So my role was to bring together all what the scientists have done and present that to the Court and with an analysis of the law and say, this is unique, um, and it’s got an identity that the Court has to recognise. And the Court said yes eventually. Which was a great, great moment. I thought, you know, I, I didn’t know that we would win, you know, you just do your best but, um, and the hearing was really surreal. It was really surreal because, um, it was like ten hours, so many parties involved and, um, the mining company was there obviously, Cornerstones was there and State was there. They were presenting, uh, very, the position very clearly. Um, and also they were threatening Ecuador with an arbitration if, if their investment was to be affected with a decision that said no. Um, and I felt great that I, I, obviously I am very well acquainted with arbitration so, you know, it was a Constitution is obviously the type of law that you have to take into account to do your due diligence before you actually go and invest. So an earth you want to go anywhere and say, well, you know, actually I can walk on top of the Constitution it doesn’t matter. So it was quite interesting that all these different levels of law had to come together. It was not a naïve Court. It was not a, um, conversation that was, um, isolated from a reality and, and real politic, no, it was a conversation that was taking place, a dispute in Court for nature. Uh, had been completely aware of all what is at stake. So I thought it was wonderful. Yeah.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
I, I thought that was a very telling point, you tell it in the book when in the hearing, Cornerstone, rather than engaging with, with the legal question, under domestic law, international law, instead said, you know, well if the Court finds against us, we’re going to take this to international tribunal and file a claim against the State.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Um, and, and I checked and they have not made good on that threat.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
(laughs).
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
To this day.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Well.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
So your rebuttal was effective.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
My rebuttal was effective, I mean, certainly they would have lost. I mean, it was, um, yeah, I mean, I that, uh, um, these are the realities when it comes to protecting biodiversity. Um, I have felt quite privileged, um, to come to this area with the practice, if you want, you know, that understands those other walls as well, and how the law at the end of the day is quite integrated. So this morning I was at 4.00am, I confess I woke up at 4.00am, I was drafting something which is going to be part of a book, um, in honour of, um, a judge that passed away, not long ago from the ICJ, um, one of the things that I, um, was reviewing was the writings of a very famous scholar and diplomat and the father really of international law, Grotius and, and Grotius really is, is his foundational book about War and Peace, um, conceived law as systemic, you know, it’s a system. And I think that vision has accompanied me throughout all my career and I think, um, in my own perspective, I mean I don’t think that there is a contradiction when it comes to commercial law or investment law or environmental law, I mean, there is a unity, uh, and there can only be one rule of law. So it’s not that this can be right here and wrong here, depending on, of the lens, but rather how do you combine all these different interests, and what is the answer that the law is given to that problem? And I think this is precisely what I’ve been doing with my work, looking at what is the solution.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Bringing that inter…
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
…integrative approach.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Absolutely.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
So far we’ve been talking about substantive law and how that has evolved. Uh, I’d like to also touch on, on procedural law, and that might sound dry, uh, but it goes back to the discussion, uh, from the 70s, should trees have standing and who can represent nature in a Court of law?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Mm.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Now you have been in such a Court of law in the Los Cedros case, in the Loss Cedros case.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
How was that question answered there?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
So the Constitution there is quite clear, um, anyone could, anyone could bring the case of nature for Courts. But in that particular case, was brought by the local government. So by the, you could say the equivalent of council here. Um, so there was the, um, beginning of the case at the lower level. Um, but you can see that all parties, even the parties that were Amicus participated, which shows that the voice of the forest was brought from different angles, including from the angles of the scientists. Now, um, there are obviously other forms, how procedurally, um, there has been representation of the voices of, I don’t know, natural bodies like rivers etcetera. Um, some of them have been via guardians or the system of guardianship, for example, um, the case of the Atrato River, which is interesting because in Columbia there’s no Constitution that says nature has rights. But the particular Court identified that that was the only way, so protecting the river was the only way to properly resolve the dispute. So people brought the case on behalf of their own human rights, that they were suffering a lot of, um, heavy metal contamination. Quite, actually quite disturbing because, um, mercury has been, had been because of the mining around, had ended up in the water. The fish were contaminated, people were eating the fish, um, it was massive. And then when they bring the case they want the right to health etcetera and the Court saw that the best way to finish with that problem was to protect the river because the moment that you protected the river, you had the quality of the water changed and the people could safely fish and eat the diet that they always had. So, um, they’ve developed that approach. And in the, the decision, in the judgment they form, not only that they said that the river has rights, and the use obviously some international law to argue that, but they basically said that they could be formed a, um, guardianship system that could have a plan, um, within one year to establish what was that plan. Um, the guardians were formed by people living along the river, representatives, but also the State, and it could have a scientific advisory group as well. And it was all set up in that way with funding that the State had to put forward, uh, and that they had to produce a plan for the river eventually to clean it up etcetera, etcetera. And the procedural rights also granted procedural rights to the river because the river could go back to Court in its own name, um, so I found that that was quite a leap when it came to, you know, giving procedural rights. There has been other examples in Canada, uh, the, concerning the Magpie River. Uh, a council has gone for an ordinance, and in the ordinance they have said this river have procedural rights as well. Um, so it’s very interesting how this is evolving. I am acting on a case at present before the European Court of Human Rights, acting for a lagoon. And the lagoon is Spanish and it is a little person under Spanish law. Um, and that particular piece of legislation, Article 6, grants any individual wanting to protect the lagoon, the procedural right, to bring it to Court. So any, any NGO, any, anybody could possibly bring that case to the Court and that’s what happened in, in this case and that’s why we ended up now before the European Court of Human Rights. So I, I find it fascinating.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
So, that example shows…
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yeah.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
…that this is by no means a movement limited to Latin America or, uh, the global South broadly speaking. That the idea of recognising the legal, uh, personhood of natural entities is a movement that has reached the, the global North.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Certainly, and actually at the, in a major way because, um, you know, the highest example I had participated in was this Constitution, Ecuadorian Constitutional Court proceedings. But this is happening before the European Court of Human Rights and obviously, um, you may know that legal persons have legal standing in Strasbourg and that has already been from the 70s but what used to be for the legal persons were usually corporations. So this is a test case because for the first time that a natural body, that is an acknowledged legal person is seeking, uh, redress before the Strasbourg Court. And I think that is huge test for Strasbourg and I’m looking forward to arguing this case before the Court.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Uh, just so we can look it up, what’s the case called or?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
It’s called Mar Menor.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Mar Menor.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Mar Menor, Kingdom of Spain.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Thank you, we’ll put those in the footnotes to this session. Um, I’m mindful of time. I just want to ask you about, um, the sort of elephant in the room I guess, in, in the book and it keeps coming back, is politics. Um, you seem somewhat disillusioned with politics and you right, uh, it is clear to me, so you write that the conflicts of the parties, the climate change talks that happen every year is a form of productive denial. A lot of busying around but very few actual outcomes. And you write, it is clear to me that the changes have to come from the bottom upwards. Legal processes and litigation are part of that phenomenon. So I’d just like to ask you directly, how do you think this shift to an ecocentric legal system can come about?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yeah well I, I don’t think I am, um, I see law and politics, um, you know, completely separate. So I don’t consider myself disillusioned of political speech or the political environment. I think I am very much in agreement with Rosalyn Higgins’ perspective of law as a process, and that happens in a political context. So, and we know that, um, we are always paying attention to, to policy. In fact, you know, one year I was a legal advisor at the Foreign Commonwealth Office, and a great lesson for me was to see how the law, uh, applies in a political context. But what happened in particular with the Paris Agreement is, um, a big limitation when you actually come to a stall because there is a diplomatic, I would say, lack of agreement in, in moving forward to an applicability of, of primary rules that have been agreed and adopted. So the question is, so you have a wonderful set of principles but you don’t have enforcement mechanisms. So what happens with that? You see that we cannot do anything with that treaty. And my answer was, no, yes we can. And then the big question was do we interpret all treaties in a way that takes account of that new reality and that’s the path that I, I followed. And I think that, uh, why is it that the ordinary person is important here? Because the ordinary person was really experiencing the every day. Perhaps, you know, back then when I started it was the Inuit’s or the Torres Strait Islanders type of people. But, you know, clearly to me, this was going to be soon and fast, a matter that we, we were all going to be, uh, worried about. I mean, look at, if we think about water and how important water is, Um, rivers we know, I mean, are super important when it comes to, um, combating climate change. Um, rivers in the UK are the rainforests of Britain. You could say it’s equivalent when you think about, uh, the rainforests in other parts of the world. So those are absolutely essential, let’s say. And you have seen what has happened recently with, um, you know, water being really scarce in England and we witnessed what happened in Sussex not long ago. I never thought that I would live a day in England where, you know, a town for example, would be deprived from water for four days. I mean I have lived that in Lima in Peru and I knew how strong, you know, the experience is for anyone that is. But it is happening because we are in a crisis and people are starting to understand how valuable and important it is actually to protect the natural world. So basically in other words, um, it is who are, you know, on the front line if you want to understand all these changes are the ordinary people. And I think those are the, the cases that are coming to the fore, that are coming to change the law. Change the law in the sense really of helping to evolve, you know, the law because judges are just interpreting what is out there. But the principles are being applied in a context that is new and ordinary people have a great role and power to, to actually be able to, to make, make these mechanism, uh, forcing these mechanisms to look at it and give a solution.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Thank you. I would like to take some questions now if there are any in the room? Alex.
Audience, Alex
Monica thank you so much. Um, law responds to the political environment and the social environment as you’ve said and ordinary people are beginning to realise the value of the nature around them for themselves. I think if I tried to badly encapsulate some of what you’ve said. Where do you see the biggest opportunities for the law in driving change in the times that we’re living in now?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes. You know, I see a great role for lawyers. I think we are really extremely important in this process because people come with problems but lawyers are the ones that have to look for solution. And who have to argue them in front of those who decide what the solutions should be. And so that’s why I see, um, a really, you know, if you observe, when I started analysing climate issues, environmental issues and I started writing on this after this invitation for this arbitral organisations, this was 2015, the bar, to give an example, not climate change, was nowhere to be seen at the bar. And in fact even I, I don’t recall having anything from law firms at the time. But how fast that has changed. I don’t think right now there is one single Chambers in London that doesn’t claim to do climate law at some level. And so that shows really that, uh, you know, this is a very live matter and then lawyers have clearly, um a crucial role to contribute too. So, um, I think that the opportunities are out there in the following way. Um, just like the time when the Human Rights Act emerged and was adopted and you know, then you have the whole subject of human rights being incorporated into English law. Wow, what a moment. All the different standards were developed. I think we are, you know, in a very similar moment but, but you know, in the area of environmental law. Environmental law has started showing up in different international bodies but now also domestic level is being extremely relevant. And there’s so many different types of disputes that we are seeing developing now new standards, clarifying law, if you, to take an example, um, environmental impact assessments, what a revolution. I mean, not long ago it was conceived in certain ways. With the Finch case, we clearly saw how limited was the interpretation of what an environmental impact assessment, you know, supposedly was to, to, uh, look at. And now we have the clarification from the Supreme Court. But that’s one tiny example. But like that there are many, many, many different areas. So I think what I see is that incredible moment that there is so much to do when it comes to clarification of the law, uh, redress. Um, and that is both in the public law arena, it’s also in the, in the area of private law. We are just seeing group litigation, uh, becoming a very important type of procedure in the UK. I act in group litigations. It’s not an easy life type of litigation but, uh, when you see the outcomes of, of some of these cases, it can be just swept in and, and made me very proud of our legal system in England because it is robust and it can deal with extremely complex cases. So I see really, uh, now after the international Courts have delivered these massive advisor opinions, a moment where, so what do we do with these principles? That these Courts have enunciated? How do we apply them here in the UK and what, because the UK obviously have these obligations. Internationally they already know that, so how does that translate into our domestic law here when that’s a sea of opportunity right now and, and, you know, I just see so much to do. So I think, uh, this is a big moment.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
But it was really very expensive so this inheritocracy or this inheritance that we’re sort of thinking about or might, might get. Is that a guarantee?
Mishcon Online
If I may I’ll ask a question from one of our online guests. So it’s from Dorena and she says, thank you very much for this session. As someone from a migrant background I find your progression within the legal profession and your achievements particularly inspiring. In reflecting on your career development, may I ask what challenges you encountered and how you addressed them?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes, I think adaptation was a key, is a key word and I think for all of us it is. Um, I think that, um, when I studied law originally in Lima, I was always told I was not going to be a lawyer. I was a jurist and apparently that was really about thinking as a lawyer rather than, you know, being comfortable just with one set of rules. And that was very true and I realised that when I came to the, to the common law. Well, I loved the common law because, wow, it works so well and, uh, it was really exciting to see, um, it was like a hundred years gap, you know, from seeing one system and then a hundred years later, you see another system that has evolved to this level. But equally procedural law, I was completely fascinated by, by, uh, civil law litigation in this country. So I guess, um, to me it is very key to have that openness and, and to have that ability to, um, adapt. Um, and I think that that is a key for, for, uh, success in any fields and innovation. So I was not scared of innovation. I was just telling you before how, um, I was very respectful of these views that were, you know, the, um, the people that came before me that were quite well respected, very established that they had certain views about the law. And I was a bit timid about, hmm, am I, am I seeing things rightly here? I disagree. Well at some point in my career, I realised that, um, I have reached the maturity to actually stand my own ground and disagree with some people that, uh, maybe I respected but I disagree with. And so to be courageous enough as an advocate, as a barrister, to actually present things in front of the Court in the manner I understand them, I think that, that is extremely important for an advocate, for a barrister to make a difference and I think for the law. So we talk a lot about being fearless at the bar. Well that I think is what fearless means. It means to be able to, um, without further considerations, just, uh, believe in, in the interpretation that you are giving to the law and present that in an honest way before, before the Court. So, so that would be my advice.
Audience
Thank you so much for a great talk and also the book. Um, you already talked about the opportunities in law and also domestic law, the role of lawyers. I just wanted to drill a little bit into international law, public international law and something you’ve dedicated your career to obviously. One hears a lot these days about the end of the international rules based order and how everything is collapsing and we’re back in an era of great power politics. What are your reflections on that? How do you see the international rules based order, if there was ever such a thing, evolving and how do you, what would you say to that?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yes, thank you for the question. Uh, this morning, um, the proof that I was reviewing was, uh, of a chapter I wrote in this book called, is there such a thing as progress in international law? That’s, that’s a question I addressed. Um, and I went really through all the, um, development of law, through the centuries in international law. Um, and whether it has taken us to a moment where you could say, you know, is there such a thing, a continuous progress? I think that, um, as someone who has come from a low list, lack of enforce, enforcement of any, um if you want, um, standards that cut teeth, you know, I come from that, I come from experiences of a civil war, just like Grotius had experienced of civil war, he wrote his book in the midst of that. I see the, um, importance and the role of law and the rule of law and what we have limited and sometimes, uh, facing great challenges, it is something extremely valuable to protect. So I do think and agree with Grotius that ultimately the source, the ultimate source of law is human consciousness. And to the extent that we as, as human beings consider the function of law, what the function of law, what law ultimately serving is, is, is definitely to make humanity, and not just humanity, but the community within this planet, obviously viable. So anything that, um, goes against that I would say it goes against, um, an important premise that is the rule of law. So I, I, I have faith that as a humanity, we don’t want to destroy ourselves and we have these amazing moments because you see, don’t forget that it’s in great obscurity that the law has evolved. The law has never evolved when it was all very comfortable. It’s, it is I moments of great darkness that all of a sudden the law had to have a proper response for the future. And I think we are just leaving that very moment. And I think we are really, each of us, very, um, capable to bring something to that and that’s why I think it is a big moment where it’s not going to be just about humanity, it’s going to be about a multi-species world, um, because our law is evolving. And I am looking forward to see what we are going to achieve in the next years. But I mean, part of that is people that are in this room probably. So, so yes, that would be my answer to your question.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
What a call to arms. Uh I think there was one more question in the room?
Audience
Thank you so much. Um, I had two questions but I don’t want to be too greedy. Um, the first was just about the cover and the process that you, you went into with the book because it is a beautiful book so I’d love to hear about that. Um, and then, um, I’d love to hear about what you’d like us to do with this book to kind of follow on the call to arms conversation?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Um, the purpose of the book was really very new because usually, you know, when you write as a lawyer, you, you are not seen as a person and this was a different type of book because, um, it was very personal and maybe the idea was that, you know, to, to take the license of stepping away sometimes from, uh, the advocate and then to, uh, start realising that I was, you know, part of the problem. Maybe chapter one puts that quite clearly how, um, I felt implicated and this is precisely the kind of feelings and observations that made me want to discuss beyond the law. I didn’t want to write illegal analogies, I wanted to, to involve you all and, and walk, perhaps give you a glimpse into this process where I was understanding things in a way that sometimes was rather surprising and shocking. Uh, sometimes it made me angry and sometimes, for example, seeing the rivers being diverted, I mean, it made me angry at some points. Um, and, and yeah I mean, also these emotional aspects of, um, I don’t know, this big battle and what you see is happening and then it’s a reaction, um, there is also, um, perhaps understanding can go beyond the law. There is a lot about literature here and philosophy. And I loved that, that possibility to actually, you know, step out from the shoes of just a lawyer and being able to be human and non-human. Because actually I was really getting the beyond human. I was getting into the shoes of, um, a plant, uh, or you know, how a mushroom feel about this or, or the point of view of this frog. Uh, and that was rather refreshing. So I enjoyed the process very much. It was really, really lovely. And I wrote sometimes, you know, I wrote it really in two months. Um, yeah so, and I was sometimes growing, uh, writing the book, um at 4.00am, um, you know, when everything was quiet and I could see my garden and I was, um, it was a very nice process actually and I enjoyed it very much, oh I’d like to do this for a living really. It’s very nice and so, so I think, uh, I love books. I think books are a great window to a lot of, uh, interesting ideas, um, and I think we do have to engage with ideas so, um, it was a gift that I wanted to put out there. Uh, and I was very curious as to how people would engage with it. So I hope you like it.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
And the second question I think was about the cover art.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Ooh, the, the cover.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
A question for favour.
Barrister and Author
Yeah so, so, no it was a little bit inspired by, um, Von Humboldt. So I mention Von Humboldt in the book and, um, he was making some drawings during his visit to Ecuador. Um, and there’s a particular drawing of him and the Chimborazo at the back so, um, the back you can see is a little bit, it follows a little bit that style. And, uh, and this is a little bit, uh, symbol, right, because there are different, you can see here, I mean some aspects of the Los Cedros, which has a lot of, um, vegetation that is very similar and, uh, a combination of different landscapes, you know, the Guatemalan landscape. Um, it has a bit of the Amazon. I mean I travel in the Amazon and I speak a little bit about my trips in the Amazon. That Amazon that I met, doesn’t exist anymore. So there’s a lot of, uh, I don’t know about the nostalgia but there is a sense of a world that it can go very fast if you don’t act and I think that’s what, um, maybe the cover was trying to draw you into, you know, this natural world, uh, that could have a threat, you know, that can potentially affect it in an irreversible way. So that was the idea, um, behind the, the images there. Yeah.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
I think we’ve got time for one more question.
Audience
Thank you very much for the inspiring talk. I just have a specific question about rights of nature because there’s a lot of academic scholarship that critiques rights of nature as being maybe a bit individualistic and chopping up a very broader ecological question. Um, and simulating a sort of level playing field between all the actors, like the communities, corporations, the State etcetera. Do you think there is more to explore in to rights of nature to bring about, uh, I was thinking about the Atrato case a long time after, uh, the State hasn’t still fulfilled all of its obligations because of also governance issues, right? Waiting for the government of Columbia and do you think this should be coupled with other processes alongside rights of nature?
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
Yeah. So, um, I think issues of, um, to start with I mean I think it is a, um, a little bit to actually need to talk about rights of nature. So already showing something. You see, it’s just similar to, to need to talk about human rights. It, it show you already that there was a massive violation and it’s the same because, you know, if you talk, if you, if you speak to indigenous people, they will tell you that they don’t know what is nature because they are within. So they don’t need the concept. There’s a lot of different languages from indigenous people. They don’t have the word, nature in the language. 58.28, you don’t, it doesn’t exist. So it is our western civilisation that needs that concept of nature. But you know, we, because we need to protect it, we go alone now having to name it, in order to protect it. Um, and to the extent that we understand that we are within, the, the, you know, we are part of that otherwise where are we? I mean, we are not a building so we are, so we are made of organic matter so, we are part of it. Um, now when it comes to enforcement, yes, I mean, these are the first instances of something new that is growing, but I think how fast this is moving is what you have to pay attention to. I mean, not long ago the first insect has given, has been given that protection, that is a stingless, um, bee in the Amazon, in the Peruvian Amazon. To the extent that we are starting to culturally change our own minds and our own understanding is a huge step forward. Think about England. When I advised the River Ouse which was not long ago, it was only the River Ouse and maybe there were already consider a bit of nutters, you know, what are they doing? Declaration of rise of rivers? Well I mean it’s not that crazy, because it’s not just about a declaration. For example, in the case of England. Uh, we worked for a couple of years with all the instruments that we could possibly advance an ecological perspective in. For example, there was no mentioning in some of the policy documents of, um, anything to do with biodiversity, anything to do with the value of the river. Uh, the river was only mentioned when there were instances of flooding. So you start thinking, is this valuable for us and in way is valuable? And once you start changing all these soft law areas, you know, you start creating a different, um, framework. So it’s not just one single instance, it is, it is bigger than that. And I think it’s reaching people very fast in England. I think there’s about four, five different instances where councils have already made declarations of, of rivers. So to give you that example, what we are creating there is a new social contract. And at some point in England, it will arrive the moment to discuss that properly. The moment where there are so many constituencies that actually have affirmed those rights that you will have to have a different type of conversation. So you see how complex it is and it’s not just about one specific, you know, measure that was complied or not complied. This is bigger than that. That’s my perspective.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Monica, thank you and what a great note to end on. Um, it’s a perfect illustration of the power of the law and power of lawyers, not just in litigation, but also in their advisory work. Because this is an example of you advising the, a district council, uh, of Lewes in relation to the rights of the River Ouse. Uh, and so I think we can all take from this, uh, an opportunity to reflect about how we can bring the rights of nature into our own practice as lawyers. Uh, whether it’s contract, whether it’s public law, whether it’s commercial law and, and help edge along that ship to an ecocentric approach. So thank you again for joining the Academy, Monica.
Monica Feria-Tinta
Barrister and Author
A pleasure.
Laurence Doering
Managing Associate
Please can we have a warm round of applause.
[applause]