Environmental Investigations And Litigation: Part Two

Journalismfund Europe is asking: How can legal action and journalism work together to drive meaningful change in environmental protection?

The focus of our second informal conversation with the ClientEarth lawyers will be on how investigative journalism can help advance legal efforts to promote transparency and accountability in key sectors such as supply chains, energy, and environmental governance. NB This webinar will not be recorded.

We will be discussing:

• Litigation and Supply Chains

What does legal action in high-risk supply chains look like? Drawing on work related to agricultural products linked to deforestation and the seafood sector, we will discuss common issues around their environmental and human rights impacts, transparency and supply chain traceability, and how investigative journalism can support legal interventions to promote traceability and corporate accountability.

• Dieselgate and Regulatory Oversight

Nearly a decade after the Dieselgate scandal, what have we learned about regulatory enforcement and information-sharing? This part will focus on ClientEarth’s work to scrutinise national market surveillance authorities and the European Commission, highlighting the role of journalism in ensuring compliance and promoting transparency under EU law.

• Access to Information and EU Institutions

What are the practical and legal challenges of accessing documents held by EU institutions? We will explore how investigative journalists can navigate these barriers, what they should keep in mind, how to frame the request and the process in the case of refusal.

REGISTER HERE

Speakers:

Kaja Blumritt: Kaja joined ClientEarth in September 2021 and is a member of the value chains, trade, and investment team. Her work focuses on supply chains that are linked to global deforestation. She specializes in EU legislation on deforestation-free supply chains, corporate due diligence and ending supply chain impunity for violations of environmental and human rights standards. Kaja studied law and politics/international relations in Germany and the Netherlands. Before joining ClientEarth, Kaja worked in the European Commission.

Francesca Peretti: Francesca joined ClientEarth in May 2022. As a Sustainable Seafood Lawyer, she focuses on market issues related to IUU Fishing, including labelling.She is currently developing legal strategies to hold seafood companies accountable for their impacts on both the environment, including biodiversity, and human rights. Before joining ClientEarth, she contributed to the development of the Blue Economy portfolio at the Division of Ocean Affairs and Law of the Sea (DOALOS/OLA). At the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE), she worked in the Legal Affairs Unit.

Emily Kearsey joined ClientEarth's London office in December 2021 and since then has worked primarily on clean air related interventions and advocacy. Emily works as a lawyer in the Resources, Energy and Mobility team and her current work focuses on tackling the ongoing legacy of Dieselgate in the UK and EU.

Gautier Rolland joined ClientEarth's Brussels office in January 2025. As a member of the Resources, Energy and Mobility team, he focuses on advocacy and litigation related to mobility issues - particularly the legacy of Dieselgate and the right to healthy air. Prior to joining ClientEarth, he practiced administrative and constitutional law at the Brussels Bar and worked as a teaching and research assistant at the University of Louvain (Belgium).

Ilze Tralmaka joined ClientEarth in August 2023 as a Lawyer on Environmental Democracy. Her work focuses on ensuring access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters. Before joining ClientEarth, she worked as a Senior Legal and Policy Officer for a criminal justice NGO, Fair Trials, advocating for better fundamental rights guarantees for suspects in criminal proceedings and leading its litigation work in Europe. From 2015 to 2019, Ilze led the Latvian Parliament’s fundamental rights, constitutional and public international law litigation before the Constitutional Court of Latvia.

ClientEarth is a non-profit environmental law organisation that uses legal action to uphold environmental protections and hold governments and corporations accountable across Europe. It has taken legal action against the European Commission for approving harmful fossil fuel projects, sued the UK government over air pollution, and challenged Poland’s expansion of coal-fired power plants. Their work spans climate change, biodiversity, and pollution laws. They have previously collaborated with investigative journalists to expose environmental harm and systemic wrongdoing in the environmental sector and will be speaking from experience.