Exciting new perspectives and approaches presented themselves to the numerous participating legal scholars and researchers from the natural and social sciences as well as from the humanities. The 2016 Environmental Law Forum at the University of Graz focused on a specific field of tension, viz. that of “Climate Protection Law between Desire and Reality”. More than one hundred participants from all over Austria partook in the event organised by the University of Graz, the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the CCCA. The aim of the event was to investigate the topic at hand from various scientific and scholarly perspectives for the first time. The Forum was able to welcome Daniel Ramos, Legal Officer of the World Trade Organization, as keynote speaker.
Based on national and international examples, both the topicality of climate protection legislation and case law as well as its problems were strikingly illustrated. Both the interdisciplinary diversity of the participants and the importance of establishing long-term connections between jurisprudence and the natural as well as the social sciences with regard to the topic at hand underscore the significance of environmental law. This appear to be a clear mandate for the CCCA to consider this event as a starting point for expanding the cooperation between the disciplines in question.