Call for Papers

CLIMPACT INAUGURAL CONFERENCE – Shaping the Future of Climate Litigation Research — Bari, 12–13 October 2026

15 September 2026

We are pleased to announce that the CLIMPACT Inaugural Conference will take place at the University of Bari Aldo Moro on 12 and 13 October 2026. Over two days, scholars from law, political science,…

We are pleased to announce that the CLIMPACT Inaugural Conference – Shaping the Future of Climate Litigation Research will take place at the University of Bari Aldo Moro on 12 and 13 October 2026. Over two days, scholars from law, political science, sociology and economics will convene to assess what climate litigation actually produces.

As climate change continues to demand public attention, courts have become primary venues to contest the gap between state commitments and action. Over 3,600 cases across 62 countries are now reaching apex courts and international tribunals, driven further by recent advisory opinions. The conference addresses whether litigation changes anything, and if so what, where, for whom, and under what conditions. Evaluating impacts beyond judgments requires interdisciplinary methods, non-legal evidence, and long observation periods. Existing research spans disparate fields with differing standards, leaving unresolved whether conflicting findings reflect substantive disagreement or research design. The programme is built around three keynote dialogues, each addressing one of the domains in which impacts arise: legal and policy; social, media and narrative; judicial and transnational. In each, two or more scholars engage one another directly under a chair. Alongside them, six parallel panels selected through an open call for papers follow those impacts into the settings where they materialise. The conference is also the occasion on which CLIMPACT — a four-year project funded by the Italian Fund for Science, hosted at the University of Bari Aldo Moro and led by Giuseppe Naglieri, analysing 500 cases worldwide — presents its research agenda, and on which its own methodological choices are put before the researchers best placed to contest them. Two side events accompany the conference and are open to everyone:

• Monday 12 October, 09:30–10:30 , ahead of the opening, Sala Biblioteca, Palazzo Ateneo: the presentation of Contenzioso climatico e diritti umani. Itinerario globale attorno al sindacato giurisdizionale sugli obblighi di mitigazione di Stati e imprese (Giappichelli, 2026) by Giuseppe Naglieri.

• Monday 12 October, 19:30–22:00 , at L'Argenteria, Via Roberto Da Bari 139: Courts, Stories, Consequences: The impacts of climate litigation and the people behind it , a joint CLIMPACT × PersoNa event.

We look forward to welcoming colleagues to Bari in October.