Highlights
[Upcoming] Book Seminar, "International Financial Institutions and Sustainable Development: Lawmaking and Accountability" (CUP, 2025)
When the World Bank supports development projects in the Global South, it is not only providing money but also making international law. Balancing theoretical and practice-oriented elements, International Financial Institutions and Sustainable Development introduces researchers, teachers, and students in international sustainable development law to the environmental and social policies (‘safeguards’) of international financial institutions (IFIs). It also scrutinises the case law of independent accountability mechanisms that interpret those policies and afford recourse to individuals and communities adversely affected by development projects.
Global Climate Action in the Trump Era
On 3 September 2025, APCEL's Senior Research Fellow, Linda Yanti Sulistiawati, led an ASIL Abroad panel on “Global Climate Action in the Trump Era.” Speakers Beatriz Garcia, Elizabeth Wu, and Junice Yeo discussed COP30’s challenges, climate litigation, and media’s role in climate discourse. The session covered global power dynamics, AI impacts, carbon monetization, and Southeast Asia’s vulnerability, offering thought-provoking insights for future climate action, research, and collaboration.
Scholars: Asian nations, including Singapore, should step into climate leadership vacuum
Following the Trump administration’s dismissal of U.S. climate negotiators and renewed withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, COP30 in Brazil faces uncertainty. Scholars urge Asian nations, including Singapore, to assume greater climate leadership. Singapore’s efforts—such as supporting the IPCC and launching the Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership—highlight its potential as a regional climate finance hub to drive renewable energy and sustainability amid waning U.S. engagement. (English translation)
Driving Climate Justice Through Private Law Thinking
Justin Lim, 27, studies how private law—contracts and property rights—shapes environmental outcomes and can be used to address climate challenges. A researcher at NUS’s Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law, he also coordinates Singapore’s work with the World’s Youth for Climate Justice. Calmly pragmatic, Lim believes every effort, no matter how small, helps drive meaningful environmental change. (Translated into English)
"Litigating Climate Change in the Global South" wins the 2025 ANZSIL Book Prize and the 2025 ESIL Collaborative Book Prize
APCEL warmly congratulates their centre director, Jolene Lin, and her co-author, Professor Jacqueline Peel (Melbourne Law School), for winning two prestigious prizes - the 2025 Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (ANZSIL) Book Prize and the 2025 European Society of International Law (ESIL) Collaborative Book Prize - for their book, Litigating Climate Change in the Gobal South (Oxford University Press, 2024).
