EJRU News: Student Conference, Trips to New York and Jane Bennett Visit Scheduled

With the Easter holiday approaching it seems like a good time to reflect on and celebrate some of the EJRU research activities and events, particularly the students’ contribution to these over the last few weeks and months.

Student Environmental Law Conference 2019

A number of LLB Environmental Law and Justice students participated in the student-led Environmental Law Conference at Swansea on 3 April, presenting on a variety of topics. They did so alongside students from Swansea and the University of the West of England. This excellent event was organised by Swansea student Charlotte Hassall, working under the supervision of leading academic Tory Jenkins. 

In terms of the Cardiff contribution, Shalom Nkashaba and Ed Farrell were the first to present, giving a dialogue-style paper on the strengths and weaknesses of UK fracking regulatory law. Next, Nadine Salter examined animal agriculture from a climate change perspective, in the context of growing support for vegan attitudes to food consumption. In the afternoon were two presentations on Brexit and the Environment. Tom Rowlands explored the reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy under the Agriculture Bill. He was followed by Thanos Georgoulas, who examined the policy underpinnings of environmental law outside the EU.

Student travel to the conference was supported by EJRU. A huge thank you to Thanos, for coordinating the event from a student perspective. A particularly striking feature of the Cardiff student papers was the pervasive mix of politics and law – as befitting our multi-disciplinary Unit!

Student blogging

You can read some of the great student blogs that third year students on the Global Environmental Politics module wrote for their 1,000 word blog assessment here. Each blog offers a thorough account of the science and politics of the issue and provides insightful personal perspectives on how and why we must respond to these forms of global environmental degradation.

A Trip to New York for Dr Richard Caddell

In March 2019, Dr Richard Caddell participated at the Second Intergovernmental Conference on an internationally legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity or areas beyond national jurisdiction, at the UN building in New York. He also participated at a side event at the negotiations, organised by the Nereus Program, entitled “No Fish Left Behind: Fisheries and BBNJ”, presenting a paper entitled “Fisheries and Environmental Assessment”.

The Grand Finale for Imagining the Eco-Social Series

Professors Jane Bennett and William Connolly will be coming to Cardiff University in December 2019 as capstone speakers for the New Materialist Reflections on the Anthropocene series. Bennett is best known for her groundbreaking book, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things — one of the most celebrated and discussed New Materialist texts. Connolly is similarly distinguished and celebrated. We are very much looking forward to their visit and two-days of activities to celebrate their work and the end of the series.

Forthcoming events

May is a busy month for EJRU and we hope that many of you will be able to join us for the following events:

14th May, 1-3pm, room 2.29a/

Teresa Dillon, Professor of City Futures, Bristol UWE

COP 24: Researching UN Climate Change Conference

15th May, 1-2pm, room 1.28 

Dr Jen Allan, Dr Hannah Hughes, Mulugeta Sisay and Valeria Tolis

20th May, 1-2pm, room 2.29

The Post-Colonial Evolution of Water Rights: A comparative look at India and the United States

Jesse J. Richardson, West Virginia University

For further information or any of the above events please email Hannah Hughes.

Publications

In April 2019, Richard Caddell and Erik J. Molenaar at Utrecht University, published Strengthening International Fisheries Law in and Era of Changing Oceans with Hart Publishing. The book is a cross-disciplinary collection, albeit with a primarily legal focus, which features contributions from a number of leading experts on international law, management, policy, science and economics relating to fisheries. Richard authored a chapter entitled “International Fisheries Law and Interactions with Global Regimes and Processes” 133-163 and co-authored chapters on “Area-Based Fisheries Management” (with Daniel C. Dunn and Guillermo Ortuno Crespo) 189-217 and “Emerging Regulatory Responses to Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (with George Leloudas and Baris Soyer) 393-420. Other recent publications by Richard include:

“The Role of Human Rights in Implementing Socially Responsible Seafood” (2019) 14 PLOS One e0210241 (with Lydia Teh, Edward Allison, Elena Finkbeier, John Kittinger Katrina Nakamura and Yoshitaka Ota).

“Managing Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction in the Changing Arctic” (2018) 112 American Journal of International Law: Unbound 134-138 (with Timo Koivurova)

“International Environmental Governance and the Final Frontier: the Protection of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems in Deep-Sea Areas beyond National Jurisdiction” (2018) 27 Yearbook of International Environmental Law 28-63.

You can read a recent post by Professor Anna Grear’s on how the law can account for the value of complex, nonhuman entities such as rivers, lakes, forests and ecosystems here. Other recent publications by Anna include:

“Personhood, jurisdiction and injustice: law, colonialities and the global order” (2019) 10/1 Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 86-117 (with Elena Blanco).

“International Law, Social Change and Resistance: Conversation between Professor Anna Grear (Cardiff) and Professorial Fellow Dianne Otto (Melbourne)” (2018) 26/3 Feminist Legal Studies 351-363 (with Dianne Otto).