Environmental Law Discussion Group
About the Group
The Environmental Law Discussion Group is a forum for bringing together faculty and students from the law school as well as from other departments University-wide. The Environmental Law Discussion Group seeks to provoke thought and debate on important issues in the area of environmental law and policy.
The Environmental Law Discussion Group meets 4-6 times in Hilary Term. Each session, a guest is invited to present a 30 minute paper followed by 30 minutes of open discussion and questions. This year, the speaker will include academics and practitioners from law, international relations, and the Oxford University Centre for the Environment.
Seminars are held at The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, and details can also be found on their website
Convenor: Dhvani Mehta
Senior member: Liz Fisher
Forthcoming Group Events
May 2013
Thursday 30 May 2013 Week 6
- Environmental Cases involving Scientific Evidence in the International Court of Justice
- Speaker: Dr Caroline Foster, University of Auckland
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
Previous Group Events
April 2013
Thursday 25 April 2013
- Environmental Laws - flawed or fatal?
- Speaker: Professor Simon Molesworth AO QC
Oxford Law Faculty Seminar Room D at 13:00
May 2012
Thursday 31 May 2012
- The Environmental Tools of Government: A Framework for Understanding Policy Instruments
- Speaker: Professor Kenneth Richards, Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment Seminar Room at 13:00
Tuesday 8 May
- The bats in the shed; the elephant in the room
- Speaker: Professor Simon Gardner, Law Faculty, University of Oxford
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment Seminar Room at 13:00
Tuesday 1 May
- Environmental Impact, Knowledge Controversies, and Political Situations
- Speaker: Professor Andrew Barry, School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment Seminar Room at 13:00
March 2012
Wednesday 14 March
- Water, Law, and Policy In At Least Some of the United States Right Now: How Many Blinkered Projections, Constitutional Roadblocks, Democratic Manglings, Greedy Impulses, Historic Impasses, Hubristic Settlement Patterns, Market-based Distortions, Moth-Eaten Legal Conceits, and Let Us Not Forget Rampant Senses of Entitlement Can Swarm the Field of Adaptive Water Management?
- Speaker: Professor Jane Cohen, Edward Clark Centennial Professor, University of Texas
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment Seminar Room at 13:00
February 2012
Tuesday 28 February
- A Pragmatic Perspective on Democracy and Regulation
- Speaker: Professor Sidney Shapiro, Professor, Wake Forest University School of Law
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at 13:00
Tuesday 22 February 2011
- Legal Mobilization by the Environmental Movement in the UK: Eco-warriors in Court
- Speaker: Dr Lisa Vanhala, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford
Tuesday 8 February
- Managing the Fragmentation of International Environmental Law: Forests at the Intersection of the Climate and Biodiversity Regimes
- Speaker: Harro van Asselt, Marie Curie Fellow, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
January 2011
Tuesday 25 January
- Implementing Projects of Carbon Capture and Storage: Legal Uncertainties and Complexities
- Speaker: Mr Simon Tysoe (Partner in the Energy Group at Herbert Smith) and Ms Martha Grekos (Senior Associate (Employed Barrister), Planning Group at Herbert Smith)
Tuesday 18 January
- The impact of the Habitats Directive on the enforcement of planning control
- Speaker: Anthony Crean, QC, Barrister, Chambers No5.
March 2010
Tuesday 9 March 2010
- “What do Environmental Lawyers Do? What Environmental Law Scholars are Doing, Can Do and Hope to Do”
- Speaker: Dr Liz Fisher, Reader in Environmental Law, Corpus Christi College ; Dr Bettina Lange, University Lecturer in Law and Regulation, Wolfson College; Eloise Scotford, Career Development Fellow in Environmental Law, Corpus Christi College
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment Seminar Room, Smith School,Hayes House, 75 George Street at 13:100
Tuesday 2 March
- “Burying Waste from the Production of Energy: Legal Liability for Contaminated Land after the National Grid case”
- Speaker: Andrew Waite, Partner, Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment Seminar Room, Smith School, Hayes House, 75 George Street at 13:00
February 2010
Tuesday 16 February
- “Implementing Projects of Carbon Capture and Storage: Legal Uncertainties and Complexities”
- Cancelled
Speaker: Martha Grekos, Barrister & Associate, Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment Seminar Room, Smith School, Hayes House, 75 George Street at 13:00
Thursday 4 February
- “The European Community's Integration Principle: How Integrating Environmental Protection Requirements into Other EC Policies and ActivitiesWorks (or Doesn't Work...) Legally”
- Speaker: Julian Nowag, Doctoral Research Student, St Anne’s College
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment Seminar Room, Smith School, Hayes House, 75 George Street at 13:00
January 2010
Thursday 21 January
- Tapping Transboundary Waters: Implications of the Right to Water for States Sharing International Watercourses
- Speaker: Dr Anna Russell, Louwes Research Fellow, University of Oxford
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment Seminar Room, Smith School, Hayes House, 75 George Street at 13:00
May 2009
Friday 1 May 2009
- Renewable Energy Developments and Disputes over Wind Farms: Science and the Law
- Speaker: David Forsdick, Landmark Chambers
Oxford Seminar Room, Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment, Hayes House, 75 George Street at 13:00
March 2009
Tuesday 3 March
- Legal Controversies in Decision-Making on Genetically-Modified Organisms
- Speaker: Professor Maria Lee, University College London
Oxford Seminar Room, Smith School, Hayes House, 75 George Street at 13:00
March
- Seminar Postposed - Renewable Energy Developments and Disputes over Wind
- Postponed
Speaker: Mr David Forsdick, Barrister, Landmark Chambers
Oxford Seminar Room, Smith School, Hayes House, 75 George Street at 13:00
February 2009
Friday 27 February
- Constitutionalism and Legitimacy in International Environmental Law
- Speaker: Professor Dan Bodansky, School of Law, University of Georgia; Senior Visiting Fellow, Smith School, University of Oxford
Oxford Seminar Room, Smith School, Hayes House, 75 George Street at 13:00
Tuesday 10 February
- Legal Challenges in Designing Emissions Trading Schemes
- Speaker: Sanja Bogojevic, DPhil candidate, Oxford Law Faculty
Oxford Seminar Room, Smith School, Hayes House, 75 George Street at 13:00
June 2008
Monday 2 June 2008
- 'New fresh water federalism in Australia: water use and justice issues'
- Speaker: Dr Jennifer McKay, University of South Australia
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
- 'New fresh water federalism in Australia: water use and justice issues'
- Speaker: Dr Jennifer McKay, Professor of Business Law, School of Commerce University of South Australia, Director Centre for Comparative Water Policies and Laws
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 1300
May 2008
Monday 12 May
- Climate Change and Collective Action
- Speaker: Professor Daniel Cole, R. Bruce Townsend Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law at Indianapolis
Corpus Christi College Franekel Room at 1300
March 2008
Monday 3 March
- Environmental Regulation Beyond the State? A Discussion of Transnational Networks for Setting Environmental Technology Standards in the European Union
- Speaker: Dr Bettina Lange, University Lecturer in Law & Regulation, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies & Wolfson College
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
February 2008
Monday 25 February
- Global Justice and Climate Change
- Speaker: Professor Simon Caney, Magdalen College, Department of Politics & International Relations
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
Monday 18 February
- Environmental Citizenship: Themes and Debates
- Speaker: Dr Sherilyn MacGregor, Keele University, School of Politics, International Relations & Philosophy
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
Monday 4 February
- Implementation without Ratification? Understanding US Climate Policy across Levels of Governance
- Speaker: Dr Heike Schroeder, Tyndall Research Fellow, Oxford Environmental Change Institute
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
March 2007
Monday 5 March 2007
- The Climate Change Bill - A Milestone or a Millstone?
- Speaker: Stephen Hockman QC
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
February 2007
Monday 19 February
- Deadly Delays: Climate Change and Future Generations
- Speaker: Professor Henry Shue, Dept. of Politics and International Relations, Merton College
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 12:30
Monday 12 February
- The Role of Environmental Courts in Developing Environmental Law: Reflecting on the Australian Experience
- Speaker: Dr. Liz Fisher, Law Fellow, Corpus Christi College
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
January 2007
Monday 29 January
- The UK Nuclear Legacy - A Legal Perspective
- Speaker: David Willis, Partner, Herbert Smith LLP
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
Monday 22 January
- Environmental Rights in the EC Legal Order
- Speaker: Dr. Pavlos Eleftheriadis, Law Fellow, Mansfield College
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
Monday 15 January
- Has Russia an Environmental Policy? – The Case of the Tomsk Regional Ecological Committee
- Speaker: Judith Marquand
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:00
March 2005
Monday 7 March 2005
- Law, Communities and Sustainable Forestry Use: The Effect of Romanian Forestry Management Reform on Forestry Culture and Governance
- Speaker: Speaker: Dr Anna Lawrence, Commentator: Dr Bronwen Morgan, Programme Leader, Human Ecology, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford and Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Faculty of Law respectively
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 1300
February 2005
Monday 21 February
- Risk Assessment: Perspectives From Environmental Law and Criminology
- Speaker: Dr Liz Fisher & Dr Lucia Zedner, Law Faculty, Corpus Christi College & Reader in Criminal Justice, Law Faculty, Corpus Christi College respectively
Corpus Christi College Seminar Room at 1300
Monday 14 February
- 'Suing For Europe: Adversarial Legalism and European Integration'
- Speaker: Speaker: Dr Dan Kelemen, Commentator: Dr Nico Krisch , UL in Comparative European Politics and Tutorial Fellow in Politics, Lincoln College and JRF, Merton College respectively
Corpus Christi College Rainolds Room at 1300
Monday 7 February
- Intergenerational Equity and the Law: An Economist's Perspective
- Speaker: Cameron Hepburn, JRF in Economics, St Hugh's College, Oxford Teaching Fellow, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University Fellow, James Martin Institute, Saïd Business School, Oxford
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 1300
December 2004
Monday 6 December 2004
- 105 years of transboundary water protection: Canada, the United States and the International Joint Commission
- Speaker: Professor Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia
School of Geography Upper Lecture Theatre at 1300
May 2004
Monday 3 May
- Regulatory Competition and Environmental Innovation in the EU
- Speaker: Professor Geert Van Calster, Law Faculty, University of Leuven
Corpus Christi College Rainolds Room at 1-2
March 2004
Tuesday 9 March
- Human Rights Approaches to Water Governance: Moving Beyond the Rhetoric
- Speaker: Ashfaq Khalfan, McGill University, Montreal
Corpus Christi College Rainolds Room at 13:00
Wednesday 3 March
- The `Prestige` shipwreck: Some limits of international environmental law
- Speaker: Xabier Ezeizabarrena, Basque Visiting Fellow, Oxford University
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:15
February 2004
Wednesday 18 February
- Corporate Social and Environmental Accountability
- Speaker: Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, McGill University Faculty of Law
Corpus Christi College Fraenkel Room at 13:15
