Environmental offsets: problems and possibilities across carbon, water and biodiversity
Thursday 19 October 2023, 12.30-2.15pm, Room 317MCLE Annual ForumPolicies and laws for environmental offsets are now used across domains as diverse as greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity and water at both international and national levels around the world. Despite their growth and the controversy that framework for offsets have often attracted, there has been little attention to the potential for lesson-learning across different offset domains.This forum aims to start this cross-cutting discussion with a panel of two speakers reflecting on offsets in different contexts.
Environmental lawyering and professional responsibilities in crisis?
Monday, 11 September 2023, 4.00-5.30pm, Room 317A discussion with Steven VaughanAs a species and as a planet, we are facing significant environmental harms, many of which are highly likely to only get worse over time - climate change, air pollution, biodiversity loss, deforestation, chemical harms, waste pollution, poor water quality, and so on. Somewhere in the story of each of these forms of environmental harm are environmental lawyers. They work in law firms large and small; they work for the government and regulators as civil servants; they work in-house in large corporations and charities. These lawyers lubricate, lobby, legislate, and litigate for their clients. In his recent inaugural professorial lecture and paper, Professor Steven Vaughan has suggested that some of the environmental harms that environmental lawyers help their clients bring about, ‘perfectly legally’, raise important and significant questions about the ethics of that lawyering. Do environmental lawyers do things that cost society – in the form of environmental harms – too much? And does legal ethics (written down in regulatory rulebooks and, more generally, in the theories of lawyers’ ethics) help or hinder those actions?In September we hosted a discussion with Steven Vaughan about environmental lawyering and professional responsibilities and also heard from other legal scholars and practitioners working on lawyers’ roles and responsibilities in our current environmental predicament.Co-hosted by CREEL, Melbourne Climate Futures, and the Australian Legal Ethics Network at Melbourne Law School.
Thursday 19 October 2023, 2.30-4.45pm, Room 317Following the MCLE Annual Forum (‘Environmental offsets: problems and possibilities across carbon, water and biodiversity’, we held an informal Brainstorming Workshop on Environmental Offsets to consider key questions and potential policy-related research collaborations focusing on offsets.The objective of the workshop was to identify interested researchers at the University of Melbourne and further afield and isolate ‘big issues’ of interest to a group that would like to explore pursuing a research grant on this topic in 2024.More outcomes to follow.
The public interest, law and the environment: Tasmanian Dam 40 years on
Thursday 17 August 2023, 4.30-7pm, Room 317CREEL and MLS Clinics program co-hosted an informal panel session about public interest litigation related to the environment for the Melbourne Law School staff and students.
Careers and cutting-edge research in law and the environment
Tuesday 1 August 2023, 1-2pm, Room 628In this panel session, three current CREEL graduate researchers shared their career stories and a little about their current PhD research and where it will take them, post-PhD.
Revisit this seminar by Ms Lidia Cano Pecharroman, PhD candidate MIT and Mr Cyrille Vallet, PhD candidate, Universities of Geneva (Switzerland) and Lyon (France), who presented two perspectives on the role of law and regulation in shaping our future relationship with rivers in the USA and Europe. The seminar was held at the Law School on Wednesday 12 July 2023.
Many people switch to a meat-free diet on the basis that it’s a healthy lifestyle choice with a low carbon footprint. But can we really believe the hype when it comes to vegan meat products?
Watch: Groundwater and Climate Change Panel Discussion
Co-hosted with the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training, and the Australian Chapter of IAH the panel discussed groundwater and climate change.The event was held on 25 May 2023.
2023 Environmental Art and Photography 'Competition'
2023 Environmental Art and Photography CompetitionWe are delighted to share that CREEL will have a new hub within Melbourne Law School. The CREEL Hub will include a wall dedicated to images that showcase places that connect with environmental issues and matter to our work in environmental law.Help us adorn the CREEL Hub by submitting your original images such as photos, drawings, paintings or craft.Selected entries could win one of three $100 gift vouchers!Submission closes on 31 May 2023.
Call for Papers: Animal Law in a Dis/Re-Connected World
Call for PapersCall for papers is now closedThe Australasian Animal Law Teachers’ and Researchers’ Association Inc (AALTRA) and the Centre for Resources, Energy and Environmental Law (CREEL) at Melbourne Law School invite abstracts for the 2022 Animal Law Conference: Animal Law in a Dis/Re-Connected World.
Congratulations to Prof Margaret Young and Dr Erin O'Donnell
Congratulations to Prof Margaret Young and Dr Erin O'Donnell who were awarded ARC Future Fellowship, and a DECRA respectively. Read more about their projects below.
Report: Review of literature on impacts of climate litigation
Professor Jacqueline Peel, Dr Alice Palmer and Ms Rebekkah Markey-Towler completed a report for the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) providing a Review of the Literature on the Impact of Climate Litigation, released in May 2022. Read the report here.
Watch: China's Energy Law and Energy Sector in the Context of Carbon Neutrality Objective
Dr Hao Zhang, Assistant Professor, and Deputy LLM Programme Director (Energy and Environmental Law), Faculty of Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong discussed his research on China's energy law in a seminar series hosted by CREEL, on Thursday 21 July 2022.
Inaugural AALTRA Australian Animal Law Research PrizeThe Australasian Animal Law Teachers’ and Researchers’ Association Inc (AALTRA) Australian Animal Law Research Prize will be awarded for the most outstanding contribution to the field of animal law by an Australasian scholar/student (whether by residence or birth) or whose work has a focus on these jurisdictions.
Watch: Property, acquisition and compensation: environmental regulation and cultural loss
Professor Lee Godden (Director, CREEL) presented a seminar on the topic of Property, acquisition and compensation: environmental regulation and cultural loss, on Tuesday 3 May 2022.
Call for Paper: Environmental Law Doctoral Researchers' Workshop 2022
Call for PaperMelbourne Law School’s Centre for Resources, Energy and Environmental Law (CREEL) and UNSW Sydney’s Faculty of Law & Justice are delighted to invite abstracts for papers to be presented virtually at the Environmental Law Doctoral Researchers’ Workshop 5-6 July 2022.
