Climate Mobility and Legal Innovation Programme (CLIP) 2026 by Beyond Climate Collaborative & Earth Refuge
Beyond Climate Collaborative & Earth Refuge.About the Programme
The Climate Mobility and Legal Innovation Programme (CLIP) is a practitioner-driven legal education programme designed to close the protection gaps facing people displaced by disasters, climate change, and environmental degradation. Organised by Beyond Climate Collaborative and Earth Refuge, this inaugural online cohort equips legal practitioners and scholars with practical, cross-doctrinal strategies to expand protections for climate- and environmentally-displaced populations.
Co-Organising Partners
CLIP is convened by Beyond Climate Collaborative and Earth Refuge in partnership with a network of leading institutions working on refugee, human rights, and environmental law:
- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
- International Center for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD)
- Refugee Law Initiative (RLI), University of London
- Pace Haub Environmental Law Program, Pace University
- UC Berkeley Human Rights Center
What You Will Learn
- Build expertise in climate mobility law through expert presentations and seminars
- Understand international and regional protection frameworks beyond the 1951 Refugee Convention
- Develop creative cross-doctrinal legal strategies to expand protections for displaced persons
- Learn to present climate science arguments and evidentiary burdens before courts
- Join a sustained global community of practitioners advancing justice-based responses
Curriculum (8 Sessions over 4 Weeks)
- Session 1: Mapping climate-related migration and immobility drivers
- Session 2: International and regional protection frameworks beyond the 1951 Refugee Convention
- Session 3: Domestic climate mobility litigation across jurisdictions
- Session 4: The right to remain and preventing displacement
- Session 5: Evidentiary burdens, causation, and documenting climate-related injury
- Session 6: Linking climate impacts to protected asylum law grounds
- Session 7: Presenting climate science arguments to courts
- Session 8: Synthesizing frameworks and building personalised action plans
Who Should Apply
The programme welcomes legal practitioners and scholars from around the world whose work intersects with migration, the environment, climate change, human rights, or international law. This includes practising lawyers, barristers and solicitors, judges, legal scholars and professors, postgraduate law students (LLM, JD, PhD), frontline legal service providers, policy advisors at NGOs and IGOs, and community legal officers. Applicants must have a legal background in a related field and advanced English proficiency. A maximum of 45 participants will be admitted.
Format and Schedule
CLIP runs entirely online via Zoom from 29 September to 22 October 2026, with two two-hour sessions per week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:00 to 14:00 EST (16:00 to 18:00 UTC). Participants should account for the time-zone difference in India (roughly 21:30 to 23:30 IST).
Fee and Financial Assistance
The standard programme fee is $1,000 USD per participant, payable only after selection (fee deadline mid-September 2026). Financial assistance and full or partial scholarships are available for selected applicants, with priority given to practitioners from the Global South, climate-vulnerable regions, and frontline service providers. Applying for a scholarship does not guarantee an award.
What Participants Receive
- Eight two-hour online sessions delivered via Zoom
- A comprehensive resource pack
- A Certificate of Completion
- Access to the post-CLIP professional network, mentorship, and career development pathways
- Invitations to collaborate on publications and policy briefs