Imagining The Future
When Two Worlds Collide
For over 20 years, my work in theatre was about imagining brave new worlds – conjuring ‘impossible’ versions of reality that felt brighter, more hopeful, and offering optimistic visions of futures we might shape together. Our goal was to create experiences that left audiences thinking “What if…?” and feeling inspired to act.
Now, as a newly qualified human rights lawyer, the material is different but the impulse, surprisingly, is not. The work often begins with examining the past: facts, harms, evidence. Real lives, often irreparably altered. But the point of that examination isn’t only to achieve justice for victims and accountability for perpetrators – it’s to shape the future. Set new precedents. Redefine what’s acceptable. Like crafting a really good story, it turns the world a slightly different colour than it was before.
The Spark
So what happens when these two worlds – storytelling and the law – collide? This is a developing area of my practice – combining my experience as a writer and artist with my legal training, to research and imagine innovative, ambitious, world-changing legal strategies.
Holding Fossil Fuel Corporations & Executives Accountable
My recent paper “Holding Fossil Fuel Corporations & Executives Accountable” is a legal thought experiment “rooted in jurisprudence, grounded in statute, sharpened by precedent…an invitation to imagine new strategies for corporate accountability and how we might build fairer futures through the law.”
The paper was published by Legal Voices for the Future – a collaborative learning forum run by early career practitioners and law students to “give voice to a new generation of lawyers on the most pressing issues of our time – including the climate and ecological crises.”
It is the most viewed article on LVF’s blog and has been shared widely among legal teams across the world who are actively working on corporate accountability for fossil fuel companies.
Abstract
This paper explores a bold and novel approach: using the UK’s Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA) to pursue civil recovery of wealth accumulated through corporate environmental and human rights violations in the fossil fuel sector. It asks whether the evidential strategy of “irresistible inference” can be adapted to recover ‘property’ derived from unlawful conduct by fossil fuel companies and their executives.
The central argument is this: if repeated allegations, non-liability settlements, and divestments following environmental scandals or legal proceedings can be shown to form a pattern, then an irresistible inference may be drawn that corporate and executive wealth has been derived from illegal activity. That finding could trigger grounds for recovery, restitution or – at the very least – a public reckoning.
Read the full article on the Legal Voices for the Future website.