Professor Jacqueline Peel

Overview

Professor Jacqueline Peel is a leading, internationally-recognised expert in the field of environmental and climate change law. Her scholarship on these topics encompasses international, transnational and national dimensions, as well as interdisciplinary aspects of the law/science relationship in the environmental field and risk regulation. She is currently the Director of Melbourne Climate Futures, the University of Melbourne’s multidisciplinary climate change initiative, which connects and amplifying climate research and expertise from across the University to develop positive climate change outcomes.

Professor Peel is the author or co-author of several books and numerous articles on climate and environmental law topics, including The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (ed with L. Rajamani, 2021, OUP); Climate Change Litigation: Regulatory Pathways to Cleaner Energy (with H. Osofsky, 2015, CUP); Principles of International Environmental Law (3rd ed, CUP, UK, 2012, and 4th edn, 2018, with P. Sands ); Environmental Law: Scientific, Policy and Regulatory Dimensions (OUP, 2010, with L Godden and 2nd ed 2012 with L. Godden and J. McDonald); Science and Risk Regulation in International Law (CUP, UK, 2010) and The Precautionary Principle in Practice (Federation Press, 2005).

Professor Peel's research has attracted competitive funding from various organisations, including the Australian Research Council (ARC), VCCCAR and the United States Studies Centre. In the field of climate change law, Professor Peel has held several ARC grants: to examine the regulatory framework for responding to climate change in Australia (2009-2011 with L. Godden and R. Keenan); on the role of climate change litigation in transitioning to a clean energy future (2012-2017, with H. Osofsky); on legal mechanisms for promoting corporate energy transition (2016-2019, with H. Osofsky and B. McDonnell) and for advancing investor action in the energy transition (2022-2024, with B. Neville, H. Osofsky and L. Benjamin). Professor Peel has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Berkeley Law School's Centre for Law, Energy and Environment (UC Berkeley, California) and also at Stanford Water in the West, Stanford University (2012-2015). Together with Dean Osofsky, Professor Peel has provided evaluation and research consultancy services to the UK-based Children's Investment Fund Foundation for their grants on strategic climate change litigation. She has also carried out consultancies on environmental law and policy issues for organisations such as UNEP, ClientEarth, the Climate Council and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme.

Professor Peel has been an active contributor to national and international policy processes. She served as a lead author on Working Group III (mitigation) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its Sixth Assessment Report. She was a member of an international legal expert group convened by TESS and UNEP to consider a set of principles for policymakers on trade and climate interactions. Professor Peel was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2019.

Professor Peel has received several prestigious awards such as a Fulbright Scholarship, NYU Hauser Scholarship and the Morrison Prize 2018 for her award-winning article with Dean Hari Osofsky (Penn State) on "Energy Partisanship". Her report with colleagues on Corporate Law Tools for Shaping the Energy Transition was short-listed for an Australian Legal Research Award (non-traditional research outputs category) in 2022. Professor Peel is regularly invited to take part in expert panels at conferences and to deliver keynote addresses, such as the 2016 Mahla Pearlman Oration in Environmental Law. Professor Peel takes an active interest in fostering early career researchers in her field, including her PhD students. In 2017 she co-founded (with Dean Osofsky) the Women's Energy and Climate Law Network with the aim of fostering greater involvement of women in areas of energy and climate law-related scholarship and practice. In 2022, Professor Peel taught at the Centre of Studies and Research of the Hague Academy of International Law on the topic of ‘Climate Change and the Testing of International Law’.

Other School and University Responsibilities

Associate Dean Melbourne Law Masters (2016-2018)

Director, Melbourne Climate Futures (2021-present)

Memberships and Affiliations

• Australia/New Zealand Society of International Law
• American Society of International Law
• National Environmental Law Association
• Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia