“In an attempt to make the words of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change a reality, in 2017 renowned French environmentalist Nicolas Hulot, then Emmanuel Macron’s Minister of the Environment, put forward a bill that would have phased out fossil fuel extraction in France.

Canadian oil and gas company Vermillion threatened an ISDS lawsuit.  As a result, the bill was shelved and replaced by a watered-down law that continues to allow it.

This is one of the many cases in which foreign investors sue or threaten to sue, under the ISDS clauses of international investment agreements or the investment chapters of free trade agreements, States that put forward legislation or other measures to address the climate emergency.

On May 21, 2021, G7 Climate and Environment Ministers expressed their “grave concern that the unprecedented and interdependent crises of climate change and biodiversity loss pose an existential threat to nature, people, prosperity and security.”

Against this background, the panel will discuss whether oil, gas and coal companies should be allowed to continue to use ISDS to prevent States from taking climate action, and, if not, what should be done about it.”