Department of Public Law and Sustainability (CLASS)

The Department of Public Law and Sustainability is a department of the Institute of State and Law of the Czech Academy of Sciences, focused on legal issues related to sustainability, particularly from the perspective of public law disciplines. It builds on the work of the Centre for Climate Law and Sustainability Studies (CLASS), which has been operating at the Institute since 2020. Our mission is to examine current legal issues and problems related to environmental protection and climate change and to contribute to their expert legal solutions in the Czech Republic. The impetus for establishing the original Centre for Climate Law and Sustainability Studies was the awarding of the Lumina quaeruntur grant to Hana Müllerová for a 5-year research project titled Climate Protection Law. Within this framework, the foundations of a new branch of climate law were successfully laid in Czech legal scholarship. Currently, the Department is engaged in the scientific examination of public law aspects of sustainability across a broad spectrum, ranging from international and EU law through human rights and constitutional law to administrative law contexts. We focus primarily on environmental law and related disciplines, with a particular emphasis on climate law, within which we analyse the legal aspects of ecological transformation and decarbonisation. We focus on the formulation, application, and interpretation of these legal frameworks, ranging from international conventions to domestic regulations and relevant case law. In our research, we also examine the internal tensions and conflicts between environmental goals and conflicting socioeconomic interests. We view legal frameworks in the field of sustainability as a dynamic system and an integral part of the transformation of contemporary public law. We assess them in terms of their effectiveness, legitimacy, and ability to provide stable legal support in a time of ongoing social and technological change. Through critical reflection on these legal frameworks, we contribute to the discussion on the future shape of regulation in the context of global environmental challenges.

Since September 2025, the team’s research has been supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports through a two-year ERC CZ project titled “Climate Law Under Pressure: Calls for Exigency” led by Hana Müllerová. The project examines how to design adequate legal responses to climate change that maximize efficiency and speed while preserving the principles of the rule of law, which may be threatened by the introduction of various exceptional or emergency measures.

At the end of May 2024, we hosted the first international conference on climate law in the Czech Republic! The conference was one of the important milestones of the CLASS Centre activities. The two-day in-person event was held in the representative premises of the main building of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It was opened with a keynote panel of three eminent climate law experts: Prof. Laurence Boisson De Chazournes from the University of Geneva, Prof. Annalisa Savaresi from the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Stirling, and Prof. Dr. Moritz Reese from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research. More than 60 participants from all continents then discussed the development of climate law and the role of various types of actors in it – governments, civil society, courts, business and others – in a total of ten panels. The conference also had its special guest – Prof. Bedřich Moldan, a leading personality of Czech environmentalism and the first Czechoslovak Minister of the Environment. The full programme of the event, photo gallery and other information can be found on the conference website. The conference will now be followed by the preparation of a collective book, whose chapters will be based on the topics discussed in the panels; nevertheless, the call for chapter abstracts is also open to potential authors outside the participants. The call can be found as a pdf to download here – we invite you to send us abstracts by the end of July!

At the end of 2022, we published the first collective volume in the Czech language describing the field of climate law (H. Müllerová et al.: Klimatické právo, Prague: Wolters Kluwer, 2022).

We also consider it one of our key public interest missions to assess the current level of implementation of environmental and climate commitments arising for the Czech Republic under international and European law, and to make recommendations regarding future legislation; among other things, we analyze and comment on the interpretation of these commitments in significant court rulings and compare the framework climate laws of European countries.

Working on topics of sustainability presents us with a challenge to reduce the negative environmental impact of our own scientific work. Read more about our team's commitments to sustainability.

Stay informed

Besides our website, we share information on the activities of our Centre through the Newsletter and LinkedIn. On our You Tube channel you will find the video recordings of the lectures of our guests within our ‘CLASS online’ series as well as the presentations of our team members, many of them in English.