Call for Abstracts: International Conference on SLAPP, Activism and Human Rights
The Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain), in collaboration with the Institut Català Internacional per la Pau (ICIP) and the Centre d’Estudis de Dret Ambiental de Tarragona (CEDAT), has launched a call for abstracts for the international conference SLAPP, Activism and Human Rights: Legal and Social Challenges in the Defense of the Environment, to be held on 30 June 2026.
The conference addresses the growing phenomenon of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), increasingly used to silence environmental defenders and restrict fundamental rights across Europe, and aims to reflect on the challenges related to the transposition of the Directive (EU) 2024/1069 (‘Anti-SLAPP Directive’) as well as on broader legal and social responses.
The Scientific Committee is composed of Carmen Montero Ferrer (University of Santiago de Compostela), Mª Victoria Cuartero Rubio (University of Castilla-La Mancha), Estrella del Valle Calzada (University of Valencia), Maria Esther Jordana Santiago (University of Girona) and Diana Marín Consarnau (Universitat Rovira i Virgili), while the Organising Committee includes Susana Borràs Pentinat (Universitat Rovira i Virgili), Maria Font i Mas (Universitat Rovira i Virgili), Joan Marc Ferrando Hernández (Universitat Rovira i Virgili) and Alexandre Moreno Urpí (Autonomous University of Barcelona).
Contributions are invited from legal, comparative, political and interdisciplinary perspectives, covering, inter alia, litigation practices, policy responses, comparative approaches, the state of transposition of the Anti-SLAPP Directive and the impact of SLAPPs on environmental activism.
Abstracts (max. 300 words), accompanied by a short CV and a separate document with author details, should be submitted by 1 May 2026 to congreso.slapps@urv.cat.
Applicants will be notified by 15 May 2026. Selected papers are expected to be published in a special issue of Actualitat Jurídica Ambiental (AJA).
Further information can be found in the call for abstracts, which is available here.