The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, the GDR ClimaLex, CNRS, and the Institute of Legal and Philosophical Sciences (ISJPS) at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne are pleased to invite submissions for the workshop Corporate Climate Accountability Litigation: Law, Strategy and Accountability, to be held at the Columbia Global Center in Paris on June 15, 2026.

This workshop will bring together a small group of scholars and practitioners to examine the evolving legal theories, procedural dynamics, evidentiary challenges, and remedial approaches shaping corporate accountability for climate harm. The event is designed as a collaborative research exchange, with substantial time for discussion and engagement among participants. We welcome contributions that engage with broader conceptual, comparative, or theoretical questions related to corporate climate litigation. Works-in-progress and recently published papers with a forward-looking agenda are encouraged.

We particularly welcome submissions that engage with one or more of the following themes:

• Causes of Action and Liability Theories: How legal doctrines conceptualize responsibility, harm, and obligation in corporate climate cases. Relevant topics may include the adaptation of tort and nuisance doctrines to climate-scale harm, the role of human rights and constitutional frameworks, consumer protection and climate deception claims, and corporate governance or shareholder responsibility as avenues for accountability.
• Procedural Gatekeepers and Judicial Power: The role of standing, jurisdiction, admissibility, and forum selection in shaping climate litigation. This theme includes questions relating to jurisdictional strategies, transnational litigation, institutional competence, and the ways procedural doctrines influence the trajectory of climate claims.
• Proving Climate Harm: Evidentiary and methodological challenges in corporate climate litigation. Topics may include causation and attribution, foreseeability and risk, expert evidence, and methods for demonstrating and quantifying climate-related damages.
• Remedies and Judicial Authority: How courts conceptualize and deploy remedies in climate cases, including damages, injunctions, structural relief, and orders related to mitigation or adaptation. Contributions may examine the purposes of remedies in climate litigation, judicial willingness to innovate in response to systemic harm, and the institutional role of courts in climate governance.

Across all themes, we especially encourage proposals that offer comparative or cross-jurisdictional perspectives, identify emerging doctrinal tensions or trends, engage with broader theories of responsibility or adjudication, or draw connections between litigation, regulation, and climate governance.

Prospective presenters should submit a proposal that includes the presentation title, presenter name(s) and affiliation(s), contact information, a short bio, and a 250–350 word abstract summarizing the focus, methods, and relevance of the proposed presentation. Proposals should be submitted to sabinsorbonneparisconference@gmail.com by March 30, 2026.

Authors will be notified of decisions by April 15, 2026, and selected presenters will be asked to submit a preliminary draft (no longer than 10 pages) by May 15, 2026.

For full details and submission guidelines, please see the conference call for presentations.

We look forward to receiving your submissions and to welcoming participants to Paris for a collaborative discussion on the evolving landscape of corporate climate accountability litigation.