We take seriously the environmental footprint of our research activities. Our Charter commits us to minimizing environmental impact through concrete choices: purposeful travel that combines multiple activities, carbon-neutral digital infrastructure, sustainable event planning, and conscious decisions about physical materials. We track and report our carbon footprint annually, maintaining transparency about the environmental costs of international research while working to minimize them where possible.

Climate litigation scholarship has developed primarily in Global North institutions. We actively work to correct this imbalance, prioritizing engagement with cases and perspectives from the Global South, recognizing that many innovative litigation strategies emerge from jurisdictions facing acute climate vulnerability. We approach the field through an intersectional lens, acknowledging that climate impacts disproportionately harm marginalized communities who contributed least to the crisis.

We maintain comprehensive protocols for managing research data, protecting participant confidentiality, and ensuring GDPR compliance under oversight of our Data & Research Ethics Committee. All research outputs are open access, removing paywalls that restrict knowledge circulation. Our data management plan details how we collect, analyze, store, and share data throughout the project and beyond its completion.

We engage litigants, lawyers, activists, affected communities, corporate actors, and government officials as experts whose perspectives inform our analysis. Our protocols ensure voluntary participation based on informed consent, protect confidentiality, and maintain clear boundaries between research and advocacy. We approach all stakeholders evenhandedly while recognizing the power imbalances shaping whose voices get heard.

We align our operations with established frameworks advancing climate responsibility and research integrity. We support the Fossil Free Research initiative, rejecting funding from fossil fuel companies and maintaining transparency about all funding sources. We endorse the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative supporting the transition to renewable energy. Our research contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action) and adheres to the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and Principles of Open Science.

Integrating legal scholarship, sociology, and economics requires more than parallel analyses. Our Charter establishes protocols for building trust, developing shared vocabulary, and creating psychological safety where researchers can question assumptions across disciplinary boundaries. We invest deliberately in the time-intensive work of genuine interdisciplinary integration, recognizing that shortcuts undermine analytical quality.

Climate litigation research increasingly employs artificial intelligence for processing large volumes of legal documents and identifying patterns across cases. Our Charter establishes clear frameworks for AI deployment, ensuring these tools enhance rather than compromise analytical rigor, that human judgment remains central to interpretation, and that we remain vigilant for biases embedded in AI systems.