On 9th April 2024 the European Court of Human Rights delivered Grand Chamber rulings in three cases relating to climate change:

Carême v. France - https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-233261

Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others - https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-233174

Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland - https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-233206

In this video, Dr Stefan Theil discusses the extent to which the ECHR is prepared to dictate how countries might implement their own climate change policies.

Stefan Theil is Assistant Professor in Public Law and a Fellow and Director of Studies at Sidney Sussex College. In Stefan's recent book 'Towards the Environmental Minimum' (Cambridge University Press, 2021) he argues for the recognition of a comprehensive framework that addresses the relationship between human rights and environmental harm.

For more information about Dr Theil, please refer to his profile at:

https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/s-theil/6578

Law in Focus is a collection of short videos featuring academics from the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, addressing legal issues in current affairs and the news. These issues are examples of the many which challenge researchers and students studying undergraduate and postgraduate law at the Faculty.

The government has recently announced that it intends to quash by legislation convictions of hundreds of subpostmasters who had been prosecuted by the Post Office for, variously, theft, fraud and false accounting. This follows a number of appeals which have already succeeded where it has been accepted that convictions that are based on generated by the Horizon software are necessarily unsafe. Usually, one would expect other subpostmasters to have to follow that same route, but the government is concerned about the delay in processing so many cases. Nonetheless it is unprecedented to quash convictions by legislative fiat in a situation when the courts would yet be competent to do the same; and notwithstanding the concerns of criminal and constitutional lawyers, a Bill to this effect appears likely to be produced this year and to receive support from all sides of the House of Commons.

In this short video Dr Jonathan Rogers explains the background, explores the challenges that will face those who draft the legislation, and comments further on the likely reservations that many will still entertain about this innovation.

Jonathan Rogers is Associate Professor in Criminal Justice at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He co-founded the Criminal Law Reform Now Network (http://www.clrnn.co.uk/) in 2017 and leads an ongoing project by that network into the reform of private prosecutions, and in that capacity he gave evidence to the Justice Select Committee in 2020 on safeguards in the wake of the Post Office scandal.

For more information about Dr Rogers, you can also refer to his profile at:

https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/jw-rogers/78191

Law in Focus is a collection of short videos featuring academics from the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, addressing legal issues in current affairs and the news. These issues are examples of the many which challenge researchers and students studying undergraduate and postgraduate law at the Faculty.

This entry provides an audio source for iTunes.