Climate litigation achieved an important milestone in Italy. In a landmark order on 18 July 2025, the Supreme Court of Cassation confirmed that Italian courts may assert jurisdiction over climate-related damages for the first time. The ruling opens the door to holding both public and private actors liable for climate inaction.
Last week, a Brazilian Court ordered Volkswagen to pay the historic sum of US$ 30 million for collective moral damages for slave labour in the Amazon during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985). The judgment contains numerous significant findings that will serve as important references for future cases involving serious corporate human rights violations. In this piece, however, we focus on its reliance on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which not only impose due diligence obligations on Volkswagen but also play a key role in strengthening collective memory.
On 16 July, the Hong Kong government introduced the Registration of Same-sex Partnerships Bill in the Hong Kong Legislative Council. This move was mandated by two decisions of Hong Kong’s apex court in a 2023 case. The Bill grants same-sex couples who have already registered overseas the rights to have their relationships legally recognised. The decisions came as a beam of light at the grim time of Hong Kong’s authoritarian turn. They can inspire judicial strategies to navigate a liberal enclave within the authoritarian regime, and demonstrate the correlation between gender backlash and constitutional degradation.
Pressures on universities and scholars to conform to prevailing political orthodoxies appear to be intensifying, often under the guise of safeguarding neutrality or combating alleged bias. This symposium intends to make a small contribution to re-opening the ever more restricted space for academic freedom and seek to continue to push against closing channels.
At the resumption of political activity after the summer, France’s Prime Minister François Bayrou unexpectedly announced that he would use his constitutional prerogative to ask for a parliamentary vote of confidence on September 8. The main decision now facing the French president – who has repeatedly declared that he will not leave office early – is whether to attempt to construct a new governing formula within the current parliament or to call new elections just fourteen months after the last dissolution. Neither option is attractive, and both would effectively reset French politics to 2024.
On 10 July 2025, the Swiss State Secretariat for International Finance recognized the Spanish saltwater lagoon Mar Menor as a legal subject – at least to the extent of granting it access to environmental information. This decision followed a request for information submitted by the lagoon’s legal representative. The case demonstrates that the legal personhood of ecosystems can operate across national borders. Could ecosystems like the Mar Menor, in the future, bring damages actions against companies whose activities in another country cause ecological harm?
Traditionally, the right to science as occupied a marginal place within the contentious and advisory architecture of the Inter-American system. However, in its Advisory Opinion–AO-32/25, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights changes this framework by shifting the right to science from a peripheral tool of knowledge dissemination to a central axis of disputes over epistemic authority in public policy formation. This repositioning is not merely about expanding the scope of an undervalued right but about redefining its legal status based on the structural transformations imposed by the climate crisis on the normative production forms and institutional recognition of knowledge.
In Slovakia, a unique situation is unfolding. The country is ruled by an authoritarian government that restricts fundamental rights of its citizens, puts independent institutions under political control, exploits fast-track legislative procedures, and threatens the judges of the constitutional court. Yet, this same government is in favour of more judicial autonomy, less accountability, and higher salaries for judges. The government thus seems to have hit upon a convenient strategy: granting judges greater benefits in exchange for their loyalty.
The question of possible security guarantees is at the heart of current efforts to end the war against Ukraine. White House special envoy Steve Witkoff stated on 17 August 2025 that “the United States and other European nations could effectively offer Article 5-like language to cover a security guarantee,” which would serve as a trade-off for Russia’s insistence that Ukraine should not be able to join NATO. This has brought the term “Article 5-like protection” into focus. The feasibility of such a guarantee appears impossible given legal and practical obstacles. Russia is demanding untenable concessions from Ukraine in exchange for its consent. The prospect of a credible deterrent is also missing, which is why the entire process appears to be the Russians playing for time.
Legal scholars welcomed the Apace ruling by the CJEU as a “total victory” for liberals supporting human rights and the independence of the judiciary. But the ruling has two central faut lines: it fails to acknowledge that Article 37 APD is not unconditional: its direct effect is, at best, dubious. Second, in Member States like Italy, where the judiciary makes extensive use of disapplication in asylum matters, the laissez-faire approach of the CJEU paves the way for legal uncertainty and exposes judges to populist attacks.
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters