Seminar series Climate litigation's silences Unnarratability and the limits of adjudication Add to calendar 2026-02-03 14:00 2026-02-03 15:00 Europe/Rome Climate litigation's silences Sala degli Stemmi Villa Salviati - Castle YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Feb 03 2026 14:00 - 15:00 CET Sala degli Stemmi, Villa Salviati - Castle Organised by Department of Law This event features the launch of the Research Lab seminar series with a presentation by Antoine De Spiegeleir. Climate litigation is usually approached through what courts articulate: the doctrines they mobilise, the arguments they endorse, the roles they claim in the face of the climate crisis. This paper shifts attention to what remains silent in climate adjudication. It explores 'silence' as a heterogeneous phenomenon encompassing both the unsaid—what could have been articulated but was not—and forms of unspeakability that resist expression within law’s linguistic resources. Drawing on narrative theory, and in particular on the notion of the 'unnarratable', the paper develops a conceptual framework for thinking about these different modes of silence without reducing them to error, omission, or judicial failure. It advances the exploratory hypothesis that some persistent silences in climate adjudication are linked to difficulties of narrative scale, especially the challenge of articulating climate change at an intermediate level between individual harm and planetary abstraction. The ICJ’s 2025 advisory opinion on climate change serves as an illustrative testing site for this framework. The paper’s broader aim is to enrich debates on climate litigation by clarifying how silence shapes both the promises and the limits of adjudication. Register Related events