Urgent and Existential Threat – has the ICJ Advisory Opinion changed the legal landscape?

Six months on from the landmark ruling by International Court of Justice which declared climate change “an urgent and existential threat” has anything changed for lawyers, law makers and businesses?

Has this opinion influenced corporate legal practice or shaped decision-making for firms or their clients? What are the due diligence obligations businesses need
to know about, and if the 1.5°C target is increasingly seen as unachievable, how relevant does it remain as a legal and policy benchmark?

In this episode Amanda Carpenter does a dive on the impact of the ruling with guests from both sides of the profession: Estelle Dehon KC, Cornerstone Barristers
and Shane Gleghorn, UK Managing Partner at Taylor Wessing.

Estelle Dehon KC is a versatile leading public law barrister with a broad practice, specialising in environment and planning law, with particular expertise in climate change, net zero and energy infrastructure. The other main area of her work is data protection and access to information, in which she is again recognised as a leading barrister. She also practices in election law and human rights law and is recognised in administrative and public law. Estelle took silk in 2022 and founded the cross-disciplinary centre of excellence for climate litigation and advice, Cornerstone Climate, in 2023.

The Making of Ocean: A podcast about hope and recovery

Ocean with David Attenborough (2025) was a powerful and unflinching wakeup call exploring the vital importance of Earth’s oceans and the growing threats they face, featuring shocking footage revealing the devastation caused by bottom trawling.

For this podcast, Amanda Carpenter spoke to Olly Scholey, Field Producer on Ocean, and Dr Tom Appleby, Chief of Legal Affairs at Blue Marine Foundation, to gain insight into the making of the film and examine how the law can—and should—be used to better protect our seas.

How did the production team capture such dramatic footage oftrawling? Why is bottom trawling still permitted in Marine Protected Areas? How has the trawler fishing community responded to the film? How do government policies permit this destruction — and in some cases, actively subsidise it? Considering the fact that the UK fishery and seabed are owned by the Crown on behalf of the public; and the international fishery belongs to all people of all nations, how can lawyers help protect ocean health? We explore all this and more.

Questions for this podcast were based on the audience participation at the LSA’s screening of Ocean and panel discussion, run in partnership with Blue Marine Foundation.

Image credit (c) George Duffield.

Olly Scholey has worked on a wide range of natural history feature films and documentaries over a fifteen-year career, including four Disney nature films and three landmark TV series, including the Emmy Award-winning Netflix series Our Planet.  Over the last eight years, he has specialised in ocean filmmaking, spending nearly 1,000 hours diving and many months at sea. His expertise in working in the marine environment has enabled him to develop pioneering underwater camera technologies and utilise a range of specialist techniques, delivering unprecedented footage of marine wildlife to the productions he works on.

Recently, Olly produced and directed the Ocean episode of BBC One’s Parenthood (2025), which showcased many never-before-seen parenting behaviours. Olly worked as the field producer for Ocean with David Attenborough, which released in cinemas worldwide from 8 May 2025 and on Disney+ and Hulu.

Power Hungry: the Climate-Cost Benefit of AI

In this episode, Sophia Adams Bhatti is joined by Bhargav Srinivasa Desikan for a deep dive into the carbon cost of AI—from the energy demands of large models to the hidden environmental impacts of everyday digital tools. Bhargav unpacks the origins of AI, what organisations can do to reduce their digital footprint, the innovations and policy that could make AI more sustainable and what law firms in particular need to understand as they adopt these technologies. An essential conversation for anyone navigating the future of AI in a responsible law firm.

The Socially Imaginative Lawyer

For this special episode Amanda Carpenter returns to the studio to talk to Wangui Kaniaru, Partner at ALN, Kenya. Early on in her career, Wangui was told that rather than justice, law is about trade-offs, incentives and outcomes. Realising that this is a mischaracterisation of the role law can play, Wangui put her head above the parapet to ask questions about climate justice and the role of lawyers and rule of law in a society facing the devastating impacts of the climate crisis.

How can questions of justice serve your clients and lead to more innovative, creative, and durable outcomes? Amanda and Wangui reflect on how to be a thoughtful lawyer, the implications of the ICJ ruling and nurturing hope for future generations.

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are – St Augustine of Hippo

The Purpose Brief

We spoke to Debra Sobel, founder of ‘The Purpose Hub’, to take a deep dive into ‘purpose’ and its evolving role in a responsible business. What is purpose in a corporate environment? Why is purpose relevant today? How do we articulate purpose to drive responsible growth and profitability, impact and behaviour change? Including advice on how to be purposeful, how to avoid greenwashing and how to protect yourself from ‘ESG whiplash’. This episode is hosted by Sophia Adams Bhatti.

The Elephants on the Horizon

Exploring the major trends set to shape the legal landscape

AI, climate change, geopolitics, the rule of law – the landscape of lawyering is changing. Amanda Carpenter and Sophia Adams Bhatti, public policy expert with over 20 years’ experience working across law, financial services, tech, consumer affairs, healthcare, and immigration and asylum, explore the ‘elephants on the horizon’ for law firms and how individuals can have an impact. Also, in this episode Amanda hands the mic over to Sophia, who is adding her voice as new host of the Sustainable Law Podcast.