Reflections on Belém
COP30 marked a major milestone for our organisations with the launch of the Transnational Legal Coalition (TLC). The TLC’s founding members travelled to Brazil to meet with Indigenous leaders and grassroots activists in the heart of the region that is our coalition’s primary focus – the Amazon rainforest. The TLC is a new, multidisciplinary collective working to challenge the global supply chains and economic systems that enable illegal deforestation and associated human rights abuses.
Before the panels, the pavilions and the choreography of COP30, senior TLC representatives joined a flotilla organised by the Brazilian investigative journalism outlet, Sumaúma. Travelling down the Amazon across Brazil’s northerly state of Pará, from Santarém to Belém, this was an invaluable opportunity to meet community leaders, anthropologists, journalists and climate activists to deepen understanding of each other's approaches and to discuss ways to collectively achieve our shared mission to protect the Amazon basin and its people.
On arrival in Belém, ahead of the conference’s formal start, we met with a wide range of NGOs and government officials. We were delighted to join the Center for Climate Crime Analysis’ at their ‘Climate Hub’ on 7 November for the event ‘Transnational Legal Accountability: fighting together against environmental harm and human rights violations.’ Alongside Brazilian lawyers, environmental and human right defenders, we shared more about the TLC’s strategy and objectives to community, NGO and government representatives and sought feedback on this emerging project. The room reflected the approach we are trying to build. Indigenous representatives and riverine community members sat alongside prosecutors and legal NGOs working at the sharp edge of accountability for deforestation - grappling with land grabbing, illegal cattle ranching, financial enablers and cross-border impunity. The conversation was not about announcing a new institution, but about recognising a shared problem: the legal response to deforestation remains fragmented, underpowered and disconnected from lived experience.
The TLC is an attempt to change that- not by replacing existing efforts, but by connecting them. It is a process designed to support joined-up, multi-jurisdictional legal action that reflects the complexity of the Amazon itself.
Next steps for the TLC
COP30, held for the first time in a rainforest ecology, produced moments of ambition alongside familiar frustrations. Commitments were made, language was refined, and yet enforcement mechanisms remain weak. Voluntary pledges continue to outpace accountability.
It is precisely in this gap that strategic legal action becomes essential. When coordinated across jurisdictions and informed by lived experience, legal action can become a lever for systemic change rather than a symbolic gesture.
This trip to the Amazon was not an endpoint. It was a beginning.
In the months ahead, the TLC will move into deeper, direct conversations with communities and partners, co-developing legal strategies and preparing joined-up actions across multiple jurisdictions.