This summer edition highlights books, exhibitions, documentaries and podcasts connected with our work at The Promise Institute Europe. We are thrilled that our former poet in residence has edited a new collection! Many of these works focus on voices that have long gone unheard. They recognize the deep connections between forests, rivers, and the people who depend on them for physical, cultural, and spiritual survival. They also reflect the stories of colonialism and displacement and the search for a new place to belong.  

We wish you an inspirational summer break and look forward to reconnecting next semester. And don’t forget to Save the Date for our October 31 conference! 

The Promise Institute Europe Team:

Amanda, Ava, Ayodele, Jeanine, John, Xuchen and Kate

There has been a welcome surge of nature writing in recent years. Yet this has raised questions as to whose voices are privileged and heard in a space predominantly occupied by Western European traditions and authors. In Nature Matters, poets  Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf,  seek to redress this imbalance.  

This anthology revitalises conversations around environmentalism and ecopoetics. Its gathering of  African, Asian and Caribbean diaspora voices  is both urgent and inspirational. 

McCarthy Woolf was our poet in residence  at the Promise Institute in LA in 2020, where she explored the relationship between poetry, law and capitalism’s impacts on black, brown and indigenous bodies. 

Nature Matters

Can a planet have legal rights? Could it be defended in a court of law? How do we redefine a ‘right to life’? 

At the forefront of this movement, pioneering barrister  Monica Feria-Tinta  advocates not only for people, but also for those who have no voice: for rivers, forests and endangered species.  

In  A Barrister for the Earth, she takes us behind the scenes of ten real cases as she argues against the destruction of cloud forests and for sovereign states to account for inaction.  

Feria-Tinta was one of the distinguished speakers at our  launch conference  in Amsterdam in May 2024, where she spoke about the groundbreaking ITLOS Advisory Opinion on climate change and her involvement in the proceedings.  

A Barrister for the Earth

ITLOS Panel Discussion Video

Launch Conference Report

The Podcast Unsettled: Immigration in Turbulent Times  examines Trump administration policies and actions affecting immigration, migrants and their communities. It adopts a broad perspective, seeing immigration policies in the context of constitutional law and principles, US history and national narratives. 

The podcast is co-hosted by our UCLA Law colleague Professor Hiroshi Motomura; Professor Cristina Rodriguez of Yale Law School; and Alex Aleinikoff, Senior Fellow at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility, The New School. 

Go to Podcast

Omar El Akkad’s novel What Strange Paradise  tells the story of nine-year-old  Amir, the sole survivor of a shipwreck carrying refugees from Syria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine. On the shore of a small Greek island, he meets  Vänna, a local girl whose parents had immigrated from Northern Europe. She tries to help Amir continue his journey, risking being charged with criminal activity for doing so.  

Told in alternating chapters between Amir’s past and their present flight to safety, the novel follows two children navigating a hostile world. But beyond its gripping narrative, the book offers a sharp critique of the West’s self-image and its often hollow, ineffective response to humanitarian crises. 

What Strange Paradise

This summer,  Singer Laren Museum in The Netherlands (30km from Amsterdam) is dedicated entirely to nature, with three inspiring exhibitions and a rich, in-depth program of activities. In  We Are Nature,  Princess Irene of The Netherlands, together with art director  Maarten Spruyt and renowned international artists, highlights the profound relationship between humans and nature. “Through art, I hope to reach people in their hearts.” 

We are excited to watch The Promise, a new documentary by Dutch director Daan Veldhuizen, which examines West Papua’s overlooked struggle for independence. In the 1960s, the region was expected to become sovereign, but international pressure led to its transfer from the Netherlands to Indonesia. The promised referendum was widely regarded as illegitimate, and Papuans have since faced ongoing repression.  

The film uses restored historical footage, enhanced through color grading and noise removal, alongside interviews with Papuan exiles to show how colonial control shifted into modern exploitation.  

The movie is available to  stream online here. 

Note:  
This documentary shares its title with our origin story feature film The Promise, which tells the story of the Armenian Genocide. Co-producer Dr. Esrailian dedicated proceeds to establish the Promise Institute for Human Rights: “The Promise Institute is so named because we are making the promise to refugees and people suffering from injustice that we will create the tools and train the people to address these crises.”  

This  Ecocide Law Reading  List  is the work of  Stop Ecocide Student Ambassadors, drawing extensively from our annotated Ecocide Law bibliography.  They reviewed each article’s synopsis, selected the most relevant pieces, and organized the inter-disciplinary list by subject.  

If you want to dive into the concept of ecocide this summer,  the Ecocide Reading List  offers a fantastic starting point!  

Mark your calendars for a landmark gathering at the intersection of law, human rights, and the protection of the planet: the Ecocide, Human Rights, and Environmental Justice Conference taking place on 31 October 2025 in London. 

This one-day conference will bring together scholars, activists, diplomats and lawmakers from across the globe for an interdisciplinary conversation at the cutting edge of international law and ecological survival. Featuring selected papers from the forthcoming Special Issue of the International Journal on Human Rights on this topic, the day will also spotlight campaigners, law makers and leading states in the campaign to make ecocide an international crime. 

What to Expect 
✔️ Insightful talks by contributing authors to the Journal Special Issue 
✔️ Engaging dialogue on the intersections of ecocide, environmental justice and human rights 
✔️ A rare opportunity to connect with global thought leaders and changemakers 

 
This conference is proudly co-organized by UCLA Law The Promise Institute Europe and The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study.

📅 When: 31 October 2025 

📍 Where: The Chancellor's Hall, Senate House, London 

👥 Who Should Attend: Legal professionals, human rights advocates, international law and environmental scholars, policy makers, students, and anyone committed to ecological justice