Call for Papers

Call for Papers - Climpact Inaugural Conference (deadline extended to 31 July)

1 May 2026

CLIMPACT invites submissions for its inaugural international conference, to be held at the University of Bari Aldo Moro on 12–13 October 2026

CLIMPACT — Charting the Landscape of Climate Litigation Impacts: An Interdisciplinary Framework and Open Access Database — invites submissions for its inaugural international conference , to be held at the University of Bari Aldo Moro on 12–13 October 2026.

Climate litigation has become one of the most consequential instruments of contemporary climate governance. With cases now numbering in the thousands across every continent, litigation is reshaping regulatory frameworks, public discourse, and the boundaries of legal accountability for climate harm. Yet scholarship has not kept pace with this development in one critical respect: we still know remarkably little about whether, how, and under what conditions litigation actually produces measurable change beyond the courtroom.

This conference seeks to advance that inquiry. It brings together scholars to examine the real-world impacts of climate litigation against governments — the pathways through which judicial decisions, legal arguments, and litigation processes translate into shifts in law, policy, public perception, and governance — and to develop the methodological tools necessary for a rigorous, empirically grounded field of climate litigation impact research.

The conference is organised around keynote dialogues and parallel paper sessions. Twenty papers will be selected through this open call and allocated across four parallel sessions, grouped thematically in light of the conference programme. The detailed programme will be published separately.

There is no registration fee. CLIMPACT will provide travel support to a number of early-career researchers (doctoral candidates, postdoctoral researchers, and untenured faculty) whose paper is selected for the conference. Support includes accommodation for the duration of the conference, arranged directly by the project, and a contribution towards travel expenses.

Confirmed Speakers

Joana Setzer (London School of Economics), Benoit Mayer (University of Reading), Francesco Sindico (University of Strathclyde), Ivano Alogna (BIICL), Annalisa Savaresi (University of Eastern Finland), Harro van Asselt (University of Cambridge), Anna Berti Suman (University of Padova).

Deadline: July 31, 2026