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Author	Prof Lucas Lixinski
Organisation/Institution	University of New South Wales, Faculty of Law & Justice
Country	AUSTRALIA
Panel	International Law
Title	Litigating Nature Via Culture - Practices of Transnational Advocacy across Asia
Abstract	Peoples and communities in Asia are at the forefront of current international lawfare for the protection of the environment. Most notably, Asian countries participated actively in the International Court of Justice’s 2025 Advisory Opinion on climate change, following the leadership of their Pacific neighbours. Part of the argument underpinning the request for this Advisory Opinion is the existential threat that states, peoples and many traditional communities face as a result of climate change. This existential threat is largely driven by environmental change, but the effect is deeply cultural for Asian nations and epistemologies. Yet, as with much transnational environmental advocacy, and even human rights litigation more broadly, there is a perennial risk that cultural identity is only a Trojan Horse to kickstart litigation and generate empathetic outrage; more often than not, environmental claims supersede cultural claims. Cultural identity ends up essentialized in a mode of harmonious relationships with nature which traps Indigenous and traditional peoples in “ethnodevelopment”. This weaponization of identity is problematic as a harm in itself, and because it risks taking off the table a range of claims and aspirations, particularly with respect to remedies. This paper examines the role of culture in the aforementioned ICJ advisory opinion and its underlying proceedings (particularly submissions by Asian states). It queries whether this format of lawfare can deliver on Asian aspirations. I then juxtapose these strategies with possibilities under cultural heritage law, either as alternatives or additional pathways to reinforce the centrality of identity in international legal disputes. I will ground this discussion in broader thinking about the connection between social movements’ claims and international adjudication, to test the emancipatory possibilities of international litigation beyond the formalistic structures of nation-states, and with an eye to reframing international law practice as a law of and for peoples.
Biography	Lucas Lixinski is a Professor and Associate Dean (International) at the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney. He holds a PhD in International Law from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), an LLM in Human Rights Law from Central European University (Budapest, Hungary), and an LLB from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Porto Alegre, Brazil). He researches and teaches across a range of fields in international law, primarily international cultural heritage law and international human rights law. He sits on the Board of Editors of ESIL Reflections, the International Journal of Heritage Studies, the Santander Art and Culture Law Review, and the European Convention on Human Rights Law Review. He is also a co-founder and editor of International Law Agendas, a blog of the Brazilian Branch of the International Law Association devoted to Global South engagements with international law. He is the Director of Studies globally for the International Law Association, the world's oldest learned society in the field. His 2020 co-edited commentary to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention (Oxford University Press) (with Janet Blake) received the American Society of International Law's Certificate of Merit for high technical craftsmanship and utility to practicing lawyers and scholars. Professor Lixinski has published widely in the field of international law, with over 170 publications to his name, spanning the field’s top journals and publishers. His latest monograph is A Research Agenda for Cultural Heritage Law (Edward Elgar, 2024).