Global Day of Action

Student Law Clinics Global Day of Action for Climate Justice

The Global Day of Action for Climate Justice is a worldwide initiative that works to connect legal clinics together to raise awareness of the climate emergency. For one day every year – the 17th of November – we are asking law clinics across the world to commit to doing one thing to tackle the climate emergency - whether that's holding a conference, conducting research, volunteering for a charity, or running a social media campaign to help inform themselves and their community on a specific area of the climate crisis. So far, we have had 50 clinics join us – from Delhi to California to Melbourne – and we are hoping for many more. We at York then promote and celebrate the work of clinics internationally across our networks.

In our first year we tackled the theme of air pollution. In response, here at York we reignited (pun intended) York City Council’s anti-idling campaign ‘Kick the Habit’ to help reduce the number of idling cars outside of school gates. The 2020 theme was the rights of nature, which included a talk by renowned RoN activist Cormac Cullinan. Last year, we tackled single-use plastics. In response to the issue of plastic pollution, we hosted an interdisciplinary conference to spark a conversation on how best to regulate plastic production and where the law’s role fits into this.

This year’s theme is fast fashion! From looking at the use of finite resources and the heavy carbon footprint produced by the fashion industry, to the exploitation of workers to produce it - the ideas are endless.

If you have any questions or are interested in being involved, please email law-gda@york.ac.uk – we would love to have you! In the meantime, you can find out more at our website (www.globaldayofaction.com) and keep up to date through our social media channels: @globaldayofaction on Facebook and Instagram.

The Pledge

When we invite clinics to our campaign, we ask them to sign our Climate Justice Pledge. This is a purely symbolic act, but it is a great way to show commitment by a clinic to including the climate as an essential aspect of their work and their curriculum.
We firmly believe that climate change is a social justice crisis, which is why as lawyers and future leaders, it is essential that we consider it a part of every aspect of our work.
If you are interested in reading and signing the Climate Justice Pledge, you can do so at this link: https://forms.gle/6kpSXgjJTkxNdSyv7 and keep up to date through our Pledge social media: @ClimateJusticePledge.

Third Student Law Clinics Global Day of Action

Climate activism and Leadership 13th and 20th October 2021.

Students from York Law School and the departments of Environment and Geography, and Chemistry came together for a multi-disciplinary workshop on Plastics as part of the Departments’ response to COP26 in November. The workshop, led by Environment and Geography lecturer Dr. Adrian Gonzalez, explored the production, use and disposal of plastics in two linked seminars which saw undergraduate and postgraduate students work together to deliver a series of presentations on different aspects of the plastics crisis.

Adopting an innovative Problem Based Learning approach, the group identified a series of questions that they wanted to investigate including how consumers can hold supermarkets to account for their use of plastic in food packaging; what place plastics should have in the future in food production; and how to balance the need to preserve food against the desire to reduce excessive plastic use.

Co-organiser, Steve Levett from York Law School, said “These seminars demonstrate the effectiveness of a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of the climate crisis. Chemistry students were able to explain the different types of plastic and uses for plastic, geographers were able to talk about the impact of the global North’s reliance on plastic on the global South, and lawyers looked at the strength of current laws designed to tackle recycling of plastic.”

The Baroness Hale Law Clinic’s Global Day of Action which focuses on plastics in food production is on November 17. Law Clinics from around the world will focus on one issue for one day. Find out more here https://www.facebook.com/studentlawclinicsforclimatejustice

Client Earth plastics lawyer Rosa Pritchard talks to our GDA3 conference about her work to address the problem of excessive use of plastic.

Any questions about how you can get involved please email law-gda@york.ac.uk and do follow us on facebook @studentlawclinicsforclimatejustice to stay up to date with our activities.