In the wake of an escalating planetary crisis, the year 2024 stands as a pivotal moment for international law. This conference, co-organised with the University of Amsterdam Law School, seeks to explore and harness law’s transformative power, reimagined through the lens of racial and environmental justice, to confront the challenges of our time. It also marks the launch of the UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe, a new initiative dedicated to advancing the role of international law and human rights in addressing pressing global issues.

The past few years have seen striking developments in international human rights law, in the concept of rights of nature, as well as around a new crime of ecocide, at both national and international levels. Significant attention to the legacies of colonialism and slavery has revealed the extent to which the ecological crisis is a racial justice crisis. Attention to the devastating ecological impact of war, meanwhile, is breathing new life into underused elements of the law of armed conflict.

This year, 2024, marks a high point as we anticipate advisory opinions from three international courts on state obligations in the face of climate change: the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, and the International Court of Justice. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is also drafting his first ever policy on prosecuting environmental crimes.

In this three-day event we bring together leading voices from across these initiatives to take stock of progress, foster dialogue that bridges theory with actionable strategies, and propel the promise of international law into a new era of multi-species care, kinship and justice.