Nele Schuldt joins Bonavero Institute as Early Career Fellow to explore human rights and climate adjudication

Nele Schuldt is a Researcher in Human Rights and Climate Change Law at the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. Nele Schuldt holds a joint LL.B. in Law and Human Rights from the University of Essex and an Advanced LL.M. in European and International Human Rights Law from Leiden University. She is currently completing her PhD in Law at Ghent University. Her research examines how human rights courts engage with scientific evidence, causation and attribution of responsibility in climate change cases with a particular focus on the European and Inter-American human rights systems.

Her research will examine procedural and substantive issues in climate litigation before regional human rights courts. It focuses on standing and victim status before the European Court of Human Rights, the use of Paris-aligned greenhouse gas mitigation scenarios in assessing state obligations, and legal approaches to evaluating individual emitters’ contributions to climate change impacts under human rights law.

Through this work, she will explore how human rights courts engage with scientific evidence when assessing climate-related risks and responsibilities. Her research will consider how complex scientific evidence is translated into legal standards, helping to clarify the role of human rights law in responding to the climate emergency.

“We are very happy to welcome Nele to our research community. Her research complements and will advance the Institute’s ongoing work at the intersection of human rights law and climate change,” comments Professor Başak Çalı, Head of Research at the Bonavero Institute.  

Nele comments: 

“I am delighted to join the Bonavero Institute and to develop my research in a community with such strong expertise in human rights. I hope to contribute to the Institute’s work by bringing questions on climate science and causation into closer conversation with human rights law. I am also particularly interested in developing new work on climate change and health, including how emerging evidence on heat and other climate-related health risks can inform human rights protection and accountability.”

The Early Career Fellowship Programme encourages post-doctoral researchers or other early career researchers engaged in the broad field of human rights law who have a college or university early career position in Oxford, to undertake their research at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights. Graduate students, whether at doctoral or master’s level, are not eligible for this programme, and we suggest you look at the University of Oxford’s website detailing the recognised student scheme.  

Early Career Fellows will have the opportunity to participate in many of the activities of the Institute and are encouraged to contribute to the collegial research environment. Early Career Fellows will be entitled to make use of the University’s research facilities and libraries, and to attend seminars and lectures plus other academic gatherings open to the university community.