Value proposition

We seek to advance understanding and share knowledge of the role of law across different levels and sites of environmental governance. We gear our work towards real-world needs identified in ongoing multilateral environmental negotiations, as well as in international, transnational, national and local practice. We investigate the interactions of a multitude of specialised and multi-layered environmental regimes, in order to identify opportunities and risks towards realising sustainability and equity.

To that end, we comprise a tightly-knit group of environmental law experts in biodiversity, climate change, forests, oceans & fisheries, land & food, water, human rights, environmental justice, and corporate accountability. These themes are explored in international, EU, regional, national and sub-national law, including the customary laws of indigenous peoples and local communities. We not only draw from our academic research, but also from our direct involvement in multilateral environmental negotiations, consultancies to the United Nations and other international organisations, legal advice to developing countries on reforms of natural resource laws, and collaborations with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ organisations.

SCELG is built on three inter-related pillars:
- innovative teaching focused on the inter-connections of environmental law at different levels and sites, which is geared towards students’ global employability
- agenda-setting research cutting across traditional disciplinary boundaries
- systematic engagement with partners outside academia to co-identify strategic directions for research targeting real-life knowledge gaps

A lot of what we do at SCELG has a strong development focus. From empirical field work, to consultancies enhancing the environmental legal and governance framework in developing countries, we engage with a wide range of stakeholders working or interested in development.

Biodiversity, Climate Change, Corporate Accountability, Economic Law, Energy, Environmental Justice, Fresh Water, Human Rights, Oceans, Land, Food and Agriculture, Sustainable Development, and Traditional Knowledge