Melbourne Centre for Law and the Environment
A long-standing research centre at the Melbourne Law School spanning diverse dimensions of environmental law.
MCLE strives to advance cutting-edge research, education, and active community engagement on legal, regulatory and policy frameworks that confront pressing local and global environmental and natural resources issues, while supporting climate action and the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples, affected communities, and the non-human world.
What's on at MCLE
Panel members, Professor David Takacs (UC Law) and Joanna Zhou (Pollination), recently discussed key challenges and what needs to happen to better govern offset arrangements.
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Director
![Rebecca Nelson](https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0008/4897772/Rebecca-Nelson.jpg)
Rebecca Nelson
Director
Rebecca (Bec) is the Director of the Melbourne Centre for Law and the Environment and an Associate Professor at the Melbourne Law School. As Director, her focus is on supporting interdisciplinary connections between MCLE researchers and other academic research groupings in Australia and overseas, governments, NGOs and communities. Bec’s own interdisciplinary research focuses on groundwater and its dependent communities; regulatory design to address cumulative environmental impacts; and connections between law and the natural and social sciences.
Deputy Directors
![](https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/1589040/palmer-alice-086945.jpg)
Alice Palmer
Deputy Director (International law, the environment and the arts)
Many of Australia’s environmental laws intersect with laws of other nations – whether through international law, the environmental laws of other countries or First Nations’ laws. MCLE’s work investigates relationships between these laws. For example, how international laws on biodiversity, climate change or human rights, or the environmental laws of other countries, might shape the application and reform of environmental laws in Australia and elsewhere. In this research, MCLE is careful to examine formal laws in social contexts, drawing on creative and critical methods developed for the arts and other humanities to contribute to new schools of thought in future practices of environmental law.
![Professor Christine Parker](https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0004/1771825/parker-christine.jpg)
Christine Parker
Deputy Director (Environmental Impact of Innovative Technologies)
New and emerging technologies from biotech to artificial intelligence can have profound impacts on ecosystems, other living species and on human understandings of and interaction with the natural environment. In collaboration with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S) and the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics (CAIDE) we are investigating the entanglement of AI with environments and multispecies relationships, and the ways in which regulation to ensure safe and responsible A should include environmental responsibilities and environmental impact assessment alongside human rights and privacy protections. Other areas of investigation include the turn to biotech and alternative proteins as a proposed solution to the sustainability challenges of the food system, especially of intensive animal agriculture.
![Cait Storr](https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0010/4428352/cait_storr_2024.jpg)
Cait Storr
Deputy Director (Property, Land and Resource Rights)
MCLE has a long history of research and engagement in the law, politics and history of property, land and resource rights, in Australia and internationally. This includes research into the often-conflicting interests of the state, the resources sector, First Nations peoples, and the broader public in matters of land use and resource development. MCLE undertakes research at the intersections of property law, native title, environment and planning, mining and energy law, and international law, with a focus on promoting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights within Australia, and a just energy transition globally.
![Erin O'Donnell](https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3628629/varieties/thumb.jpg)
Erin O'Donnell
Deputy Director (Rights of Nature and Water Justice)
The growing global reach of rights of nature initiatives has made this a core focus of MCLE’s research and engagement activities. With a frequent (although not exclusive) emphasis on the rights of water ecosystems, this intersects with questions of water justice: for Indigenous Peoples, for local communities, and for the waterways themselves. MCLE’s research excellence supports partnerships with Indigenous organisations, environmental NGOs, and the water sector to deliver high impact research outcomes that promote just, sustainable and legitimate water futures.
![](https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0003/1731117/jessup-brad.jpg)
Brad Jessup
Deputy Director (Environmental Justice and Sustainability)
MCLE’s research and engagement activities include a focus on the effect of environmental harms and how communities respond within or alongside the law using traditional and less conventional means. This includes community deliberation activities that sometimes culminate in public interest litigation, community-led environmental project activities, and the use of enterprise approaches to further more just and sustainable futures.
Research fellow
![Kate Jama](https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/4741884/Kate-Jama.jpg)
Kate Jama
Research Fellow
Kate is a Research Fellow with the Melbourne Centre for Law and the Environment and a PhD Candidate at the Melbourne Law School. As Research Fellow, Kate supports and contributes to interdisciplinary research and engagement across the areas of law and the environment. In her PhD research, Kate is concerned about ways of knowing and relating to the ocean and focuses on technologies of representation and the shifting legal status of the seabed in the context of settler colonial Australia.
Academic Members
![Profile picture of Sophie Lamond](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Sophie Lamond
Graduate Researchers
![Profile picture of Alexis Ian Paguia Dela Cruz](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Alexis Ian Paguia Dela Cruz
![Profile picture of Astrid Bernal Rubio](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Astrid Bernal Rubio
![Profile picture of Dylan Asafo](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Dylan Asafo
![Profile picture of Ella Vines](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Ella Vines
![Profile picture of Juliette McIntyre](https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0005/2801093/mcintyre-juliette.jpg)
Juliette McIntyre
![Profile picture of Michael Ukponu](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Michael Ukponu
![Profile picture of Michael Bader](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Michael Bader
![Profile picture of Nicolas Ampt](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Nicolas Ampt
![Profile picture of Roanna McClelland](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Roanna McClelland
![Profile picture of Sarah Barker](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Sarah Barker
![Profile picture of Vernon Rive](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Vernon Rive
![Profile picture of Xiaoxuan Chen](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Xiaoxuan Chen
![Profile picture of Zoe Nay](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Zoe Nay
Alumni
Samuel Alexander
Samuel Alexander has an LLB from the University of Otago, New Zealand, and an LLM (Hons) from the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. After graduating Sam practiced employment law in Christchurch, New Zealand, before joining Melbourne Law School in 2006 as a PhD student. Sam's thesis was titled 'Voluntary Simplicity: Towards a Post-growth Theory of Property' (supervisors Lee Godden and Jenny Beard). Sam has also founded the Life Poets' Simplicity Collective (http://simplicitycollective.com/) which is a grass roots environmental organization dedicated to creatively promoting and celebrating sustainable culture.
Takele Bulto
Takele Bulto holds LLB and MA degrees from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, and an LLM degree from University of Pretoria, South Africa. Takele worked as a judge and lecturer in Ethiopia and a visiting lecturer at the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. He also worked as Programme Coordinator for Child Rights and Child Rights Programming in Eastern and Central African Regional Office of Save the Children, Sweden. Just before taking up his PhD studies at Melbourne Law School Takele was a Legal Officer in a PanAfrican Pioneer NGO. Takele's thesis was entitled 'The Imperatives of Extraterritorial Application of the Human Right to Water: A Case Study of the Nile Basin' and explores the operationalisation of the emerging human right to water in Africa (supervisors Jacqueline Peel and Carolyn Evans, completed in 2012).
Lisa Caripis
Lisa Caripis was an RA with CREEL between 2011-2013. After leaving CREEL, Lisa lived in South America where she worked at the Centre for Climate and Resilience Research at the University of Chile and volunteered with Tierra Digna, a local Colombian human rights organisation supporting communities affected by extractive projects. Since 2016, Lisa has worked as Research and Policy Manager for Transparency International's global Accountable Mining Programme where she leads on research, knowledge-sharing and policy advocacy. Working with local TI partners in twenty countries, the programme aims to combat corruption in the mining sector by enhancing transparency, accountability and civic participation in government decisions to approve exploration and mining projects. Adopting a multi-stakeholder approach, Lisa has worked in collaboration with a diverse range of organisations from the World Economic Forum to local civil society groups and networks.
Virginie Tassin Campanella
Virginie completed her doctoral degree n 2010, a double badged PhD from Melbourne Law School (Grade 1) and the Sorbonne University (High distinction, Prize & Funding for Publication) on the subject “The Extension of the Continental Shelf”, which was awarded the 2011 Prize of the Economic Law of the Sea Institute (INDEMER) of Monaco. She was co-supervised by Stuart Kaye, Andrew Mitchell and Jean-Marc Sorel (Sorbonne University). After completing her PhD, worked as Associate Legal Officer at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) where she worked, among other cases, on the first Seabed Dispute Chamber advisory opinion and the first extended continental shelf delimitation. In 2016, Dr. Tassin Campanella founded “VTA Tassin”, a law firm specialized in Ocean Law & Policy. She has developed since then a solid cross-sectoral and cross-field practice of the law of the sea anchored in the Science-Policy-Business nexus. The Prince Albert II of Monaco appointed her by Royal Ordinance, in June 2020, as a Member of the Scientific Committee of the INDEME along eminent scholars. She is the first “Avocat à la Cour” (Attorney-at-law) to have been appointed so far to such role.
Angus Frith
Angus Frith's PhD thesis was entitled, 'Sustainable Indigenous Entities for Making Agreements' and was co-supervised by Lee Godden, Professor Marcia Langton (Centre for Health and Society, Melbourne School of Population Health) and Maureen Tehan. Angus completed his degree in 2014.
Anita Foerster
Anita Foerster completed a double degree in Geography and Law (Honours) at the Australian National University. She joined the law school as a PhD candidate in 2005, researching the law, policy and practice of environmental water allocation. Anita's thesis was titled 'Law, policy and practice for ecologically sustainable water allocation and management? An analysis of institutional developments to provide for environmental water needs in the Murray-Darling Basin (NSW and Victoria), 1994-2008'. She completed her degree in 2010 co-supervised by Lee Godden and Jacqueline Peel. Anita is currently a Senior Lecturer at Monash University, teaching Corporate Sustainability Regulation. Anita’s current research projects include an exploration of the role of institutional investors, such as superannuation funds, in addressing climate change through investment decision-making and practice.
Steven Geroe
Steven's PhD with Lee Godden examined consultative drafting for Chinese renewable energy regulation. I’ve been teaching at La Trobe since 2013 in environmental law, climate law, contract and property. Steve have a couple of papers under review on using experience of Chinese ETS pilots in drafting the national ETS. One is co-authored with Hao Zhang, comparing enforcement measures under the national ETS and the Chinese Environmental Pollution Tax. He has a forthcoming book with Lexis Nexis: Victorian Environmental Law in Context - a concise introductory textbook for non-law students. He is currently researching on Australian low-carbon policy, including regulation on electricity prices and energy security.
Myriam Amiet-Knottenbelt
While undertaking her Juris Doctor studies at Melbourne Law School, Myriam worked as a Research Assistant to Professor Lee Godden, co-writing a book chapter on International Environmental Law and microplastic pollution as well as researching hazardous waste regulation across Australia. She also founded the Victorian Environmental Law Student Network. Presently Myriam worked as a Legal Adviser within the Public Law and Litigation Team, at the Office of the General Counsel in the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety and an offer holder for the Master of Philosophy in Law Program at the University of Oxford (commencing September 2022).
Jenny O'Connell
Jenny worked as CREEL Administrator for Professor Lee Godden and Professor Michael Crommelin AO from 2010-2013. While working part-time as CREEL Administrator, Jenny studied her Master of Arts (Cultural Material Conservation) at the Grimwade Centre (University of Melbourne). Jenny’s Master thesis researched documentation of Aboriginal art collections in remote art centres, focusing on the permanent collection at Waringarri Aboriginal Arts in Kununurra, WA. Since graduating from her Masters, a career highlight for Jenny was traveling to Gjirokastra, Albania as lead conservator for the volunteer organisation ‘Adventures in Preservation’ to document wall paintings on Ottoman Tower Houses. Jenny currently works as Senior Conservator (Painting) at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) to care for the painting collection which includes Colonial artworks by John Glover, William Charles Piguenit and Benjamin Duterreau, as well as works by modern and contemporary Tasmanian artists, such as Dorothy Stoner and David Keeling.
Yoriko Otomo
Yoriko Otomo has worked in several government and non-government environmental organisations, and has contributed to publications relating to sustainable development, environmental law and humanitarian issues. Her doctoral thesis on The Changing Landscapes of Risk (supervised by Anne Orford) seeks to develop a semiology of law through a poststructural feminist analysis of key texts within the law of occupation and international economic law, completed in 2013. Yoriko was teaching the undergraduate Environmental Law subject at Melbourne Law School.
Rafael Plaza
Rafael Plaza is an expert in Energy, Natural Resources & Environmental Law. As specialist legal counsellor, Mr. Plaza has vast experience in regulated markets, international business transactions, taxation and comparative applied legal research. Rafael conducted his PhD thesis on Transnational Power Transmission (completed in 2013), a study aimed at exploring international legal mechanisms to further power grids interconnections, unrestrained cross border power transit and the integration of renewable sources of energy into domestic energy matrices. After leaving CREEL he conducted a two-year post-doctoral research stay at China University of Geosciences (CUG) in Wuhan. Currently, Rafael divides his time between Mexico, Spain, and Chile, lecturing, researching and acting as legal counsel for private corporations and public institutions. He is a Research Fellow and Assistant Professor of Energy Law, Water Law, Macro and Microeconomics and serves as Deputy Director of the Department of Economic Law of the School of Law, the University of Chile. Recently, he was appointed Director of the Economic Law Journal of that School of Law. He also evaluates competitive research projects and future indexed scientific journals for Chile's National Agency for Innovation and Development.
Hao Zhang
Hao Zhang was a PhD student with CREEL between 2010 and 2015, under the supervision of Professor Lee Godden and Professor Sarah Biddulph. After completing his PhD, Hao worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK Law) and he is now an assistant professor at the same institution. Hao teaches energy law, environmental law and Chinese law at CUHK Law, and his research interests are primarily in the fields of Chinese energy law and climate law. Inspired by legal and regulatory issues surrounding the green economic transition in China, Hao’s recent research focuses on integration of renewable energy in China and he leads the China case study for a major research project funded by the German Environmental Agency on the interaction between carbon market regulation and electricity market regulation. At CUHK Law, Hao is the director of the LLM programme in Energy and Environmental Law, which is the first programme in the region specifically dedicated to provide legal training focusing on energy projects, the promotion of clean energy investments, local air quality, global warming and more generally the law applicable to energy security and sustainable development.
Visitors
2022
Ms Julieta Sarno, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany
Dr Hao Zhang, Assistant Professor, and Deputy LLM Programme Director (Energy and Environmental Law), Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
2019
Professor Lavanya Rajamani, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
Associate Professor Neil Craik, University of Waterloo
Professor Stepan Wood, University of British Columbia
Professor Nicolas de Sadeleer, University of Saint-Louis
Professor David Takacs, University of California Hastings College of the Law
Associate Professor Fernando Dias Simões, Chinese University of Hong Kong
2017
Professor Robert L. Glicksman, The George Washington University Law School
2016
Professor Terry Daintith, University of London
Professor Richard Stewart, New York University School of Law
Professor Robin Craig, University of Utah
Dr Daniella Rivera Bravo
Dr Junseo Lee, Korea Legislation Research Institute
Ms Evelyn Flores, Universidad de Chile
Mr Sam Johnston, United Nations University
2015
Professor Terry Daintith, University of London
Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh, National Taiwan University
Professor Owen Anderson, University of Texas
Professor John Lowe, Southern Methodist University, United States
Professor Paul Stephan, Universtiy of Virginia
2014
Professor Fadzilah Majid Cooke, Universiti Malaysia Sabah
Professor Richard Revesz, New York University
2013
Professor Aileen McHarg, School of Law, University of Strathclyde
Rebecca Nelson, Stanford University
Pieter Badenhorst, Deakin University
Manuel Nunez-Poblete, Faculty of Law, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Chile
2012
Bettina Lange, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
Professor Juanita Pienaar, Faculty of Law, Stollenbosch University
Rebecca Nelson, Stanford University
Adjunct Lecturers
![Profile picture of Stephen Creese](https://cms.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0009/3262545/pattern-library-staff-placeholder.png)
Stephen Creese
MCLE research themes
Our researchers are dedicated experts in the field of environmental law, committed to advancing knowledge and developing innovative solutions to contemporary environmental challenges.
Explore all MCLE research
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Members of the Melbourne Centre for Law and the Environment teach subjects across the undergraduate breadth programs, JD, Masters, and also supervise PhD students. We look forward to meeting you.
Melbourne Law Masters
Specialisations related to the environment, energy and resources provide insight into dynamic areas of law with strong commercial and social impacts. Legal practitioners and professionals in government and the resources, energy and environment sectors explore topics of national and international importance across an emerging range of critical issues. Areas of focus include Resource Regulation in Mining, Petroleum and Water Resources, as well as Climate Change, Energy Regulation, Development of Infrastructure, Indigenous Rights, and Environmental Law and Sustainability.
Master of Environmental Law Master of Energy and Resources Law
Information regarding other Law specialisations is available on the Melbourne Law Masters Specialist Legal Areas page.
Melbourne Law School Programs
More information on programs at Melbourne Law School:
Sustainability and Law in the Juris Doctor
See what study pathways and opportunities are available for our JD students.