🗓️ Date: Wednesday 5 August 2026
⏰ Time: 12.00pm – 1.00pm ET / 5.00pm – 6.00pm BST
📍 Online (Zoom)
Climate change is forcing communities to move, or stranding them in place, yet most people displaced by climate impacts fall outside the Refugee Convention and other established protections. The legal landscape is changing fast: litigators are setting favorable precedents in domestic courts, regional free movement agreements are expanding, and international courts are clarifying states’ obligations to their citizens in a warming world.
This session introduces climate mobility for lawyers new to the field, then turns to the legal developments now underway and the practical challenges practitioners face, including the difficulty of proving causation between climate impacts and a particular displacement. Join us for an accessible introduction to one of the most dynamic frontiers in environmental and human rights law.
The panel will be moderated by Yumna Kamel of Earth Refuge, with presentations from:
🌍 Gabriela Nalvio Melillo, J.D., Ph.D., Director of Law and Policy Innovation at the Beyond Climate Collaborative. Gabriela holds a J.D. and Ph.D. in Environmental Policy from Duke University. She is a practicing lawyer, with a focus on expanding rights for climate migrants. Her research on legal protections for climate-displaced populations has been published in the Environmental Law Review, Nature Climate Change, Nature Cities, Environment and Security, and Frontiers in Climate.
🌎 Olivia Clark, Executive Director of Refugee Legal Support, which operates in the UK, France and Greece. Olivia co-hosted the first conference on International Protection and the climate crisis last October, and is the editor of the incoming UK Practical Toolkit on Climate Displacement. She has a decade of experience working in human rights and refugee law in Australia, the UK, South Africa and Afghanistan.
🌎 Kendall Jarvis is an attorney, consultant and expert in the field of disaster legal services, and is the the leading FEMA Appeals Expert in the arena of Disaster Recovery.She started the Disaster Law Program at Legal Aid and continues to help other communities impacted by disasters throughout California and consults with response needs in other states. Kendall has created numerous legal clinics and Know Your Rights Campaigns to help survivors in real time. Her expertise has led to significant policy impacts by drafting and advocating for valued changes in federal, state and local law.
This free event is sponsored by the American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources’ Climate Change Committee.