IAPL Colloquium 2026

Environmental justice

The annual congress of the International Association of Procedural Law (IAPL) is organized by the Sciences Po Law School and will take place from October 28 to 30, 2026. Its theme is “Environmental Justice.”

Given the unlikely prospect of significant environmental progress emerging from political decisions in a strained economic and social context (see in particular Omnibus I and the Draghi Report on competitiveness), this conference aims to present the range of actions available to public and private stakeholders, and to explore ways of mobilizing judicial systems. In this context, the judge appears as a “pivotal” actor, in the words of the First President of the Court of Cassation, Christophe Soulard, and the Prosecutor General, Rémy Heitz.

This role of the judiciary in the implementation of environmental policy can only be understood by situating it within the major trends shaping our contemporary societies: the retreat of the state, contractualisation, globalisation and the rise of fundamentalism.

The environmental issue is a complex subject that assigns the office of the judge a central and sensitive role: prevailing scientific uncertainties calling into question the notion of evidence and the role of experts, deterritorialised issues prompting us to consider or reconsider questions of extraterritoriality, diffuse and transgenerational interests inviting judges to look ahead and review the conditions for legal action, pluralism of sources (hard law, soft law...), standards (legal, technical, ethical, etc.) and legal orders (lex environmentalis, lex vigilantia, global law, transnational law, etc.), and a diversity of interests at stake (private/public, general/specific, individual/common/collective, local/regional/national/international).

Procedure is still too often overlooked in environmental discourse, even though it is through recourse to the courts and procedural mechanisms that legal action can be taken. This access to the courts is, moreover, at the heart of the principle of participation, notably enshrined in the Aarhus Convention of 25 June 1998 on access to information, public participation in the decision-making process and access to justice in matters relating to the environment. In a top-down approach, the judge acts as a conduit for public environmental policy. In a bottom-up approach, they serve as a point of contact for civil society. The figure of a ‘Hermes’ judge emerges in the context of environmental issues. Furthermore, beyond litigation, amicable settlement appears to address the complex and sensitive challenges of environmental matters. Through litigation, the development of a form of judicial or contentious democracy (L. Cadiet) revives the image of the courtroom as a forum for debate and discussion. More generally, bringing a case before a national judge forms part of a strategy first outlined in the 1970s by Jacques Ellul and taken up today by authors such as Bruno Latour and Judith Rochfeld, which consists of acting locally but thinking globally.

This conference of the International Association of Procedural Law aims to contribute to the debate. It could not have taken place without the active support of our partners, whom we warmly thank.

Organising Committee

• Soraya Amrani Mekki, Professor and Director of the Law Department at Sciences Po Law School
• Bérangère Gavaudo, Communication and Events Officer at Sciences Po Law School

Partners

CNB Practical guide to the role of lawyers in protecting and Improving the environment.