FILE empowers its partners to deliver strategic and innovative legal interventions to address the climate and nature crises.

It funds its partners to build legal capacity and ensures access to technical support. The work of its partners promotes the systemic changes needed to protect communities from environmental collapse, while also upholding justice as society transforms.

FILE collaborates with its partners to incubate and co-develop ideas, build legal capacity in key countries, and ensure access to technical and communications support.

Together, they support knowledge sharing and learning within a diverse, decentralized, yet growing community of climate legal practice.

Harjeet Singh, ActionAid International at COP26

Image: Flickr/UN Climate Change

Our Principles

FILE is committed to the just transition to a post-carbon, regenerative society where nature is protected by law.

To achieve this, the following principles are at the heart of everything FILE does:

• Supporting lawyers in their own countries to bring their own cases
• Facing the global climate and nature crises with integrity and courage
• Taking risks to confront the scale of the challenge
• Creating impact through systemic changes
• Celebrating and enabling partners
• Protecting partners and frontline communities
• Supporting movements and shifting power to communities
• Supporting collaborative, diverse, decentralized networks
• Fostering inclusive, trust-based partnerships
• Providing good stewardship of resources
• Increasing access to diverse knowledge

Our Areas of Focus

FILE provides grant-making to support partners in their work pursuing climate and nature justice.

Its work focuses on systems that need the most transformative change, and where FILE – and its partners – can have the most impact. These are:

• Just Energy Transition
  Ensuring a rapid shift away from fossil fuels to renewables, in ways that prioritize impacted communities and workers.
• Finance
  Ensuring global finance is aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement.
• Land Use
  Supporting the protection and regeneration of biodiversity and carbon sinks.
• Rights and Justice
  Upholding human rights and ensuring climate justice is delivered.
• Biodiversity
  In the future, FILE plans to launch support for legal action to protect biodiversity.