EJRU News: Eco-Social series, field trips and research activities
9 October 2018
Eco-Social Series Begins
The EJRU and Centre of Legal Studies seminar series, which aims to explore inter-relationships between the ecological and the social through New Materialism, kicked-off last month with a workshop. The speakers took us on an intense journey, which started with Professor Margaret Davies (Flinders University, Australia) exploration of the place and justification of property in legal thought and social practice. We were then transported to the city scape of Hong Kong by Dr Julian Brigstoke (Cardiff University), where we followed grains of sand through their transformations into urban landscapes.
Imagining the Eco-Social is a public speaker series and all are welcome to join. The next event is on Wednesday 10th October, 1-3pm by Professor Andreas Phillipopoulos-Mihalopoulos (University of Westminster): The World is Rooted in Air: Atmosphere, Lawscape, Spatial Justice.
To register: https://doodle.com/poll/ks7r5etc5hh75wxs
For more information on the series and list of speakers, see Anna’s blog:
Field trip to Brussels
One of our PhD members, Valeria Tolis, is heading off this week for a 3-month field trip to Brussels. Valeria will be a visiting researcher, under the supervision of Dr. Elisa Lopez Lucia, at REPI (Recherche et études en politique internationale), Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). She will be undertaking research for her PhD project on European Union (EU) climate mitigation discourse under the Paris Agreement.
Valeria hopes that this trip will allow her to map the actors, networks, and institutions involved in defining the concept of mitigation at the EU level. The aim is to better understand the EU policy-making landscape, and data collection will include participant observation at stakeholder events organised by different EU Commission DGs, such as DG clima, DG energy and DG growth, as well as the EU Parliament Environment Committee (ENVI). Valeria finds these events useful platforms for meeting EU officials, INGOs and NGO actors and seizing interview opportunities. She aims to situate her observations in the wider framework of international climate change governance at the UN climate change meeting (COP 24) in December, where she will have the opportunity to observe how the EU presents itself externally.
Publications and forthcoming events
The beauty of EJRU is the diversity of research interests and projects that members are involved in. This is reflected in forthcoming publications and where this research has travelled.
Professor Ben Pontin has recently published a new article on nuisance law and the protection of pleasing ‘landscapes’: “A Room With a View: Exploring Modernisation Hidden Within the Textbook Tradition“, published in Legal Studies. In this article, Ben argues that there is little or no case law supporting the conventional wisdom that injury to a view of pleasing scenery is not an actionable wrong in English nuisance law. Such an action may succeed, he suggests, if put to the test in the courts. This is because a pleasing view is arguably integral to the enjoyment of certain property in land, and the core rationale of nuisance law is the protection of land’s value to the landholder.
Dr Ricardo Pereira’s latest book, Environmental Criminal Liability and Enforcement in European and International Law, published by Brill in 2015, has been widely cited in the United Nations Environmental Programme’s latest comprehensive study of environmental crime, which was published in June. The study includes discussion of key trends, gaps in enforcement and specific national and transnational responses to environmental crime in several countries.
Professor Elen Stokes has a forthcoming case commentary with Emanuela Bozzini (Trento University) in the European Journal of Risk Regulation, “Court Upholds Restrictions on Neonicotinoids: A Precautionary Approach to Evidence”. Elen will be speaking at the Journal of Environmental Law workshop at UCL in November.
Dr Ludivine Petetin is co-organising two forthcoming workshops on ‘Sustainable aquaculture & antibiotic use in Bangladesh: a pollution problem’ on the 30th of October and another on ‘Sustainable Food Production: From the Local to the Global’ at Queen’s University Belfast on the 29th and 30th of November.