Environmental law from the ground up

New areas of environmental law are emerging as often as flash floods and wild fires and the 5th Frontiers in Environmental Law Colloquium at QUT Gardens Point this week will identify and address many of them.

The colloquium is hosted by QUT Law Faculty as part of its International Law and Global Governance Program on Thursday and Friday, 14 and 15 February.in the OJW Room, Level 12 S Block, Gardens Point.

Speakers will discuss the cutting edge of legal inquiry on everything from eradicating planned obsolescence, and laboratory grown animal material to the potential for prosecuting land clearing as animal cruelty and formal representation of future generations.

A launch of five new books on environmental law by QUT authors will take place on Thursday, illustrating the burgeoning of this area of law.

QUT Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation Law, Matthew Rimmer said environmental law was wide-ranging in its scope and ambitions and drew from diverse legal traditions.

“We have just seen the NSW Land and Environment Court take the unprecedented step to include impacts of climate change in a judgement which rejected an application for an open cut coal mine,” Professor Rimmer said.

“The judgement dealt with Indigenous, health, social and other factors as well as climate ones which illustrates the diverse issues to be addressed in environmental law.”

QUT Professor of Law, Amanda Kennedy has recently published on such issues in her book ‘Environmental Justice and Land Use Conflict‘, which examines how environmental, social and economic factors frequently collide as more and more users compete for increasingly scarce resources.

The effective governance of such multifaceted challenges is the subject of a current ARC Discovery grant that Professor Kennedy is working on with colleagues from UNSW and Griffith University.

“The Frontiers Colloquium grows in number and diversity each year, and this latest instalment promises a fantastic scholarly exchange,” Professor Kennedy said.

“Most importantly, it will provide opportunities to discuss new developments and directions in the law that will be able to confront existing and emerging environmental challenges.”

Themes for the colloquium include:

  • Queensland issues – land clearing, Great Barrier Reef, mining and land degradation, waste management and development in northern Australia.
  • use of big data for managing and understanding the environment
  • vulnerable groups in the Anthropocene Epoch
  • sustainable development goals and legal frameworks to support their achievements.”

The books will be launched by University of Tasmania Professor of Environmental Law Professor Benjamin Richardson and are:

Environmental Human Rights and Climate Change: Current Status and Future Prospects, Bridget Lewis.

Multilateral Environmental Agreements and Compliance: the Benefits of Administrative Procedures, Anna Huggins

International Agricultural Law and Policy: a Rights-based Approach to Food Security , Edward Elgar.

Shipbreaking in Developing Countries: A Requiem for Environmental Justice from the Perspective of Bangladesh, Saiful Karim

Ecological Restoration Law: Concepts and Case Studies, Afshin Akhtar-Khavari and Benjamin Richardson (eds).

Register for the colloquium here.






/University Release. View in full here.