McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law
Revue de droit du développement durable de McGill
About | À propos
The McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law (MJSDL), formerly the McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy (JSDLP), serves as a forum for the world’s leading scholars to exchange ideas on the intersection of law, development, economics, society, human rights, and the environment. It publishes high-calibre scholarly articles in both English and French on sustainable development law, offering a space for critical analysis and debate.
Au courant des dernières décennies, la conceptualisation d’un développement qui permet la croissance économique tout en prenant en considération les impacts sur l’environnement et les droits de la personne est devenue primordial. Malgré les débouchés professionnels et les carrières disponibles dans ce domaine, l’absence d’un espace de réflexion sur le développement durable peut être constaté partout au Canada. De manière à contribuer à l’élaboration de cet espace tout aussi utile que nécessaire, le corps étudiant de la Faculté de droit de l’Université McGill a fondé en 2004 la revue de droit du développement durable de McGill (RDDDM), une revue académique dirigée par des étudiants et évaluée par les pairs.
In addition to publishing scholarly articles, the MJSDL’s editorial team leads several student initiatives that engage with contemporary issues in sustainable development law, including blog posts and the Sustainability Spotlights podcast. The MJSDL also organizes academic, professional, and social events to promote environmental awareness and foster engagement within Montreal’s sustainability community.
Announcements
MJSDL Launches The Climate Corner
August 2, 2025
In 2024, the MJSDL launched The Climate Corner, a weekly column in the McGill Faculty of Law’s student newspaper, The Quid Novi.
Climate news and research are uniquely hard to engage with. The sheer existential weight of the deluge of bad news overwhelms and causes us to panic, disengage, or rationalize. Staying up to date requires that we have finely-tuned information filters that can sift through the heaps of well-funded disinformation and let in just enough doomerism to stay informed without becoming emotionally disaffected. Active engagement with the climate crisis is hard, but without it, our environmental literacy suffers, meaningful conversations falter, and we continue to normalize and entrench untenable systems.
The Climate Corner aims to provide law students with an accessible space to meaningfully engage with the climate crisis, in hopes of sparking deeper interest, awareness, and action. It can often feel like individual actions are fruitless, and it’s largely true that efforts to reduce our carbon footprints won’t move the needle. But as future jurists at a truly critical point in the deteriorating health of our planet, with its innumerable cascading implications, we are uniquely positioned to effect real, meaningful change and reshape narrative and policy. At the very least, we have a responsibility to stay informed and environmentally conscious.
The Climate Corner highlights recent environmental cases and legislation; climate news, events, and initiatives; human rights concerns and eco-justice campaigns; as well as local volunteer and career opportunities. It also offers concrete ways to take action and hold those in power accountable.
COP15 on Biodiversity
January 26, 2023
In December 2022, Montréal hosted the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The event crossed borders and fields of expertise, bringing states, scientists, business leaders, and various civil society actors in critical discussion—and culminated in the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework, a multilateral agreement targeting gains for biodiversity by 2050. MJSDL Editors Ashley Light and Sofia Watt Sjöström attended the conference, and have now reflected on their experiences in the following blogs:
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