The Climate Mobility & Legal Innovation Programme (CLIP) brings together legal practitioners, scholars, and frontline advocates in cross-disciplinary collaboration, equipping them with the tools to develop solutions-driven legal strategies at the intersection of climate change and human mobility.

Location

Online (via Zoom)

Date

29 September 2026 – 22 October 2026

Overview

Co-hosted by Earth Refuge and the Climate Mobility Justice Academy of Beyond Climate Collaborative, the Climate Mobility & Legal Innovation Programme (CLIP) is a focused, practitioner-driven legal education programme designed to close the protection gaps facing people displaced by disasters, climate change and environmental degradation, and to equip the lawyers, advocates, judges and scholars working to close them.

By unpacking how climate change, disasters, environmental degradation, and human mobility intersect across immigration, environmental, climate, human rights and international law, CLIP creates a space for co-production of legal knowledge across historical, doctrinal, jurisdictional and community-rooted perspectives.

CLIP offers a cross-disciplinary legal community of practice capable of delivering durable, needs-responsive and rights-focused solutions for those who move, those who stay, and those who are trapped in place.

Course structure and key dates

CLIP places the legal protection gaps facing those most vulnerable to climate change and environmental degradation at its center. It engages participants in solutions-focused legal learning through the lenses of social, migrant, racial, feminist, economic, and environmental justice, grounded in a movement-lawyering approach that treats climate mobility as a live rather than impending legal issue.

The programme encourages structural and systemic legal analysis of climate mobility, moving beyond siloed doctrinal approaches in pursuit of timely, creative, cross-sectoral and rights-respecting legal solutions on a warming planet.

Objectives

1. Build a focused, practitioner-driven legal education forum on climate mobility, delivered through expert presentations, seminars and cross-jurisdictional strategy work.
2. Equip legal practitioners and scholars to close the protection gap facing climate- and environmentally-displaced populations across immigration, refugee, environmental, climate, human rights and international law.
3. Advance creative, cross-doctrinal legal strategy that expands international, regional and domestic frameworks for those forced to move, those who stay, and those trapped in place.
4. Grow a sustained global community of legal practitioners, scholars and advocates driving rights-respecting, justice-based legal responses to climate mobility.

Across four-weeks of online learning, CLIP offers a blend of rigorous expert presentations and interactive legal seminars. Each week combines direct access to leading litigators, frontline advocates and scholars with small- and large-group seminar work that turns expertise into practice.

All CLIP sessions take place online via Zoom over four weeks, between September 29 – October 22, 2026, with two sessions per week convened on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 12:00 – 14:00 EST / 16:00 – 18:00 UTC.

Session 1 · Mapping Climate Mobility: Who Moves, Who Stays, and Why

Introduce the current landscape of climate-related migration and immobility, including how climate change interacts with pre-existing drivers of displacement such as conflict, economic inequality, and political instability. Explore emerging climate-driven tipping points, the connections between historical environmental injustice and contemporary climate-related (im)mobilities, and the foundations of a rights-based approach to movement lawyering.

Session 2 · Filling the Gaps: International & Regional Frameworks for Climate Mobility Protection

Map the international and regional protection architecture beyond the 1951 Refugee Convention, including landmark decisions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice and the African Court of Human Rights, and assess key regional agreements such as the African Union’s Kampala Convention and the Australia–Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty.

Session 3 · Local Battles, Global Impact: Domestic Climate Mobility Litigation

Map existing domestic protections for people on the move in the context of climate change across jurisdictions represented in the cohort. Analyse recent case law, from precedent-setting Colombian decisions on internal displacement to Italian rulings on subsidiary protection following climate disaster, discrimination and armed conflict, and ECHR Articles 3 and 8 jurisprudence, and develop collaborative cross-jurisdictional advocacy strategies.

Session 4 · Staying Put: Defending the Right to Remain

Analyse the theoretical foundations and legal basis for the right to stay, including the aspirations-capability framework, international human rights protections, Indigenous land rights, and environmental safeguards. Explore the typology of right-to-remain claims, from anti-eviction protection to broader economic and environmental policy demands, and the right not to be displaced as articulated through UNDRIP and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).

Session 5 · Meeting the Evidentiary Burden: Addressing Causation and Documenting Injury

Understand refugee resettlement processes and evidentiary standards as they apply to climate-related displacement claims, including the role of country-of-origin information. Work through difficult causation problems using attribution science and climate-migration forecasting models, and build case assessment tools that systematically capture climate factors from the first intake.

Session 6 · Linking Climate Factors to Protected Factors

Develop creative legal strategies to connect climate impacts with established protected grounds under asylum law, human rights frameworks and domestic immigration protections. Examine what it means to ask a client to translate their lived story into legal evidence. Apply evidentiary standards and trauma-informed interviewing techniques to document climate-related injuries and harms using culturally appropriate methods that respect client dignity.

Session 7 · Climate in the Courtroom: Advocating to the Unacquainted Judge

Master techniques for translating technical climate science and migration research into clear, compelling legal arguments for judges unfamiliar with the climate-displacement nexus. Discuss expert witness coordination, visual aids and case precedent analysis, anchored by a fireside conversation with lawyers and judges working on climate-mobility cases.

Session 8 · Creating Legal Pathways for Climate Mobility Justice

Synthesize insights from the full programme to evaluate remaining gaps in legal frameworks and protections for climate migrants through a justice-centered lens. Troubleshoot jurisdiction-specific challenges, including anti-immigrant sentiment, gaps in data and field research, and bureaucratic and political barriers, and build personalised action plans that integrate climate-mobility considerations into each participant’s client advocacy, legal practice or academic research.

Beyond the classroom

At Earth Refuge and Beyond Climate Collaborative, we believe in extending legal learning, collaboration and networking far beyond the four weeks of the programme. CLIP participants join a global legal community of practice with ongoing access to emerging projects, convenings, and legal strategy work.

Expert sessions

Direct access to leading litigators, judges, frontline advocates and scholars at the frontier of climate mobility law, spanning the ICJ, IACHR and African Court of Human Rights; domestic courts in the UK, the Pacific, Latin America and the US; and international legal think tanks.

Career development

Participants receive a Certificate of Completion alongside access to mentorship and career pathways in climate mobility law.

Post-CLIP network & client pipeline

A dedicated post-CLIP professional network fostering cross-jurisdictional collaboration and client referrals, connecting alumni with frontline organizations and communities in need of climate mobility legal representation.

Knowledge production & publishing

Ongoing invitations to collaborate on joint publications, case summaries, policy briefs and thought leadership in climate mobility law.

Who should apply?

CLIP welcomes legal practitioners and scholars from around the world whose work intersects with migration, the environment, climate change, human rights or international law. We welcome participants at different stages of their careers and encourage diversity across geographies, jurisdictions and legal traditions.

The programme is designed for legal advocates and practitioners, frontline service providers, practicing lawyers, in-house counsel, judges, and law professors, all of whom play a critical role in shaping and implementing the legal frameworks that respond to climate mobility.

If you are litigating displacement cases, advising clients on climate-related regulatory risk, researching the nuances of migration and immobility, shaping new laws and policies, providing frontline legal assistance, or teaching the next generation of lawyers on climate, migration and human rights, this programme is for you.

Eligibility

CLIP is open to legal practitioners and scholars working at or moving toward the intersection of migration, the environment, climate change, human rights and international law. We welcome a global cohort, encourage participants at all career stages, and actively prioritize diversity across jurisdictions, geographies, and legal traditions.

This programme is for:

• Practicing lawyers, legal advocates, barristers, and solicitors
• Judges and members of the judiciary
• Legal scholars, professors, and lecturers
• Postgraduate law students (LLM, JD, PhD or equivalent)
• Frontline legal service providers (legal aid, refugee, and immigration clinics)
• Policy advisors and legal researchers at NGOs, IGOs, and think tanks
• Paralegals and legal officers at community-based organizations

To be eligible, applicants must have:

• A legal background in human rights, immigration, refugee, environmental, climate or international law, or a closely related field
• Basic English proficiency as CLIP is delivered in English
• A demonstrable interest in the legal dimensions of climate (im)mobility and a readiness to participate actively in expert sessions and interactive seminars

CLIP 2026 will admit a maximum of 45 participants.

Attendance, participation and engagement expectations

CLIP is a small, intensive cohort programme built around active participation. By accepting an offer of admission, participants commit to the following for the duration of the four-week programme:

Attendance

• Eight two-hour sessions delivered live online via Zoom across four weeks
• Live attendance is required for all participants unless time zones do not permit

Preparation

• Complete pre-reading shared ahead of each session
• Come ready to draw on your own jurisdictional context, professional experience, and case work in seminar discussions

Participation

• Active engagement in the interactive seminar that follows each expert presentation, including group strategy work, cross-jurisdictional simulations, and mock interviews
• A culminating personalized action plan articulating three concrete commitments for integrating climate mobility into your client advocacy, legal practice, or scholarship

Community ground rules

CLIP is a justice-rooted, cross-disciplinary learning space. Participants commit to engaging with the cohort respectfully and with awareness of positionality and power; honoring the diversity of professional, jurisdictional, and lived perspectives in the room; and contributing to a community of practice that extends well beyond the four weeks of programming.

Programme fees and financial assistance

CLIP is designed to be accessible to a global cohort of legal practitioners and scholars, including practitioners from climate-vulnerable regions, lawyers working directly with displaced communities, and legal advocates from the Global South.

Programme fee

The fee for CLIP 2026 is $1,000.00 USD per participant. This covers all eight expert-led sessions and seminars, the comprehensive resource pack, the Certificate of Completion, and access to the post-CLIP professional network.

Financial assistance

We are committed to ensuring that fees are not a barrier to participation. Through the support of our partners, sponsorship may be available for a select number of participants who need financial assistance, covering the programme fee in full or in part. Applicants may indicate during the application process whether they wish to be considered for sponsorship, and the level of support that would meaningfully enable their participation. Sponsorship decisions are made independently of admissions evaluations, which are based on merit and the relevance of participating in the training programme for the applicants’ continued and future work.

We particularly encourage applications for sponsored places from practitioners working with climate-vulnerable communities, frontline legal service providers, and legal advocates from the so-called Global South.

Legal notice

As an organisation operating under U.S. jurisdiction, we are required to comply with regulations administered by the United States executive branch, including the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In certain cases, these regulations may limit our ability to process payments or provide services or financial support for individuals in certain countries or jurisdictions.

Meet the founding team

Dr. Gabriela Nalvio Melillo is Director of Law & Policy Innovation at Beyond Climate Collaborative and an Environmental Law Associate at Covington & Burling. She holds a J.D. and a Ph.D. in environmental policy with a concentration in political science from Duke University, where her research examined how climate change impacts human mobility and the legal and policy responses it demands. Her policy advocacy has brought her to advise the UNFCCC, USAID, IOM, Oxfam, and UNICEF, among others. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University and is based in Washington, D.C.

Yumna Kamel is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Earth Refuge, the first legal think tank focused on climate displacement. She is a leading voice on climate mobility and legal innovation, with a track record of building some of the field’s most ambitious public-facing initiatives. At Earth Refuge, she has launched flagship legal education workshops, hosted the first conference on international protection and the climate crisis, and co-developed the Climate Mobility Case Database. Previously, she was the Senior Legal Education Officer at Right to Remain. She holds an LLM from University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she received the Public Interest Fellowship, an LLB from Queen Mary University of London. She is based in London.

How to apply

Applications for CLIP 2026 are submitted through the CLIP online application form. The application asks about your professional background, your motivation for joining CLIP, and your readiness to engage with a small, intensive cohort.

What we look for

• Demonstrable interest in, or intention to engage with, the legal dimensions of climate (im)mobility
• A clear sense of how participating in CLIP will support your legal work, scholarship or advocacy
• Readiness to participate actively in expert sessions and interactive seminars
• Potential to contribute to, and benefit from, a cross-disciplinary, cross-jurisdictional legal community

Applications for CLIP 2026 are opening in July 2026.

Sign up here to be the first to hear when applications are open, and to be updated on our work at the intersection of climate mobility justice.