School of Law

• The team comprised by Alessia Isgro, Christiana Fehintola, Kun Zhang and Raphael Beermann proposed a shareholder resolution at a large Japanese financial institution calling for the amendment of the institution's articles of incorporation so that the institution can better address deforestation and other climate-related financial risks.
• The team formed by Afroz Musa Mulla, Luca Verzobio, Temitope Adebowale, and Yining Zhang proposed a series of reforms to the United States ‘Fostering Overseas Rule of law and Environmentally Sound Trade Act of 2021’ Bill (FOREST Act Bill) to ensure, among other things, that the Bill's scope of application extends to financial institutions and that they are required to conduct due diligence before financing forest-risk projects or entities.

In 2021/22, the FSJ Project ran as an accredited LLM course for the first time. Three groups of 4 students each explored different legal interventions in the financial system to help mitigate ocean biodiversity loss:

• The team comprised by Ninad Mohan Haibat, Chrislyn Periera, Leo Thokoza Silunde and Zhengyao Yuan proposed the introduction of a covenant under the Loan Market Association (LMA) documentation that would require commercial fishing companies to undertake a “Blue Audit”, the results of which would need to be made public by the company. The executive summary of their report can be accessed here: FSJ executive summary team 3.
• The team formed by Dominic Elliott, Justine Le Floch, Martina Menegat and Momoka Ochiai proposed to reform the Proposal from the European Commission on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence by requiring banking institutions to conduct environmental and human rights due diligence on payment transactions. A wider scope of the Proposal will cast light on the essential role of payments in enabling unsustainable fishing practices. Their policy brief can be accessed here: FSJ Project Policy Brief 1/2022
• The team formed by Huda Al Shorman, Ross MacKinnon, Tatjana Kunz, and Thuy Thanh Vo designed a litigation strategy against bank directors under the Dutch legal system for their unsustainable investment choices in the trawling fishing industry, with the purpose of creating a wake-up call for directors of targeted banks, other banks and insurance companies. They show that establishing a precedent in this area could have systemic effects through the potential for further litigation on similar issues and changing investment behaviour. Their policy brief can be accessed here: FSJ Project Policy Brief 2/2022

In 2020/21, a group of LLM students prepared a strategic analysis of the financial system to identify potential areas for the law to intervene in order to better align the financial system with on-going efforts to mitigate the climate emergency. The report can be downloaded here: Finance and Social Justice Project Report 2021

The report then informed a collaboration with Defensoría Ambiental and the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA) to support them in the design and implementation of specific legal strategies in the Chilean financial sector."

In 2019/20, a team of ten graduate students explored the extent to which the Eurosystem was taking into account climate change when designing and implementing its Corporate Sector Purchase Programme (CSPP). As part of the project, the team: 

• Requested the German central bank and the Spanish central bank access to any information that would describe how they were taking into account climate change in the design and implementation of the CSPP
• Used the information obtained from the German central bank to draft a policy brief (FSJ Project Policy Brief 1:2020) that presented two ways in which the Eurosystem could begin to take into account climate change when designing and implementing measures of monetary policy
• Drafted a blog post reflecting on the implications of the judgement of the German Federal Constitutional Court of 5 May 2020 (2 BvR 859/15) for the CSPP in light of its negative impact on climate change. The post was published on the European Law Blog and the Oxford Business Law Blog.
• Submitted a response (ECB Strategy Review submission) to the European Central Bank (ECB)'s Strategy Review highlighting the potential for the ECB and the Eurosystem to contribute to mitigating the current climate emergency

The team worked under the supervision of Dr Javier Solana. The ten students who participated in the FSJ Project were: 

• Mr Alberto Bason
• Mr Alexander Geib
• Ms Anna Diós
• Ms Caterina Vicenzi
• Ms Carolin Paula Margareta Schmitt
• Ms Eléna Divry
• Ms Elia Cerrato
• Ms Federica Agostini
• Mr Nicolas Jaberg
• Mr Unai López

In 2018/19, a team of eight LLM students supported ClientEarth, a non-profit environmental law organisation, in the exploration of different litigation strategies that aim to promote sustainable finance in the European Union.

Over the course of six months, the team wrote a 175-page report which they presented to ClientEarth at their offices in London on 27 March 2019. The team worked under the supervision of Dr Javier Solana. The eight LLM students participating in the FSJ Project were:

• Mr Alexander Geib
• Ms Anna Diós
• Ms Carolin Paula Margareta Schmitt
• Ms Eléna Divry
• Ms Elia Cerrato
• Ms Federica Agostini
• Mr Nicolas Jaberg
• Mr Unai López