Events | Événements
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Speaker Series
Our speaker series consists of invited environmental law experts speaking at the McGill Faculty of Law on a range of issues related to sustainable development law. Members of the broader McGill and Montreal community are always welcome to attend!
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Annual Environmental Law Networking Event
Depuis 2023, la RDDDM organise chaque année, en janvier, en collaboration avec l’ADELA (l’Association de droit de l’environnement de la Faculté de droit de McGill), un événement de réseautage bilingue en droit de l’environnement. Cet événement rassemble des étudiant·e·s universitaires de partout à Montréal ainsi que des professionnel·le·s reconnu·e·s travaillant en droit de l’environnement et dans des domaines similaires. Consultez nos réseaux sociaux pour vous inscrire.
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Day of Service
Launched in 2024, this initiative highlights the importance of direct action in addressing the impacts of the ecological crisis. Our inaugural event was hosted by Les amis de la montagne, who led an invasive species management workshop on Mont Royal.
Upcoming Events | Événements à venir
Stay tuned for upcoming MJSDL events! | Restez à l’affût des prochains événements de la RDDDM!
Past Events | Événements passés
Reconciliation, Land Back, and the Law: A Conversation with Dr. Bruce McIvor
Join the McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law and the McGill Indigenous Law Association for our last speaker series event with Dr. Bruce McIvor!
February 19 @ 1PM, Moot court
Dr. Bruce McIvor is a partner at First Peoples Law LLP. His work includes both litigation and negotiation on behalf of Indigenous Peoples across Canada. Bruce is recognized nationally and internationally as a leading practitioner of Aboriginal law in Canada. His collection of essays entitled Standoff: Why Reconciliation Fails Indigenous People and How to Fix It was published in the fall of 2021. His new book, Indigenous Rights in One Minute: What You Need to Know to Talk Reconciliation, will be published in May, 2025. Bruce is a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation.
It’s All About the Land: A Conversation with Taiaike Alfred
The McGill Journal of Sustainable Development and theMcGill Indigenous Law Association are excited to be hosting Kahnawà:ke Mohawk activist and scholar Taiaiake Alfred for a conversation on issues of reconciliation, colonization, and sustainable development.
The event will be a curated Q&A, please submit your questions beforehand using the link below:
https://forms.gle/sxYY4YWk8sD8p2CZ8
The event will be in room 101 on Tuesday January 21st at 4pm.
Taiaiake Alfred is a Mohawk philosopher, writer, political strategist and governance consultant. His work focuses on the institutions of Indigenous governance, Indigenous resurgence, the revitalization of Indigenous political systems, assessing the cultural impacts of environmental contamination, and the restoration of ancestral land-based cultural practices. Taiaiake coordinates governance reform and oral history initiatives for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke and is Senior Advisor to McGill’s Office of Indigenous Initiatives. He is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and has been a supporter and participant in Indigenous nationhood movements since 1987. He has a bachelor’s degree in history from Concordia and a doctorate in political science from Cornell University. He founded the University of Victoria’s Indigenous Governance Program and was the founding Director of Concordia's Native Student Centre. He is the author four acclaimed books, has held a Canada Research Chair, and is a National Aboriginal Achievement/Indspire laureate in the field of education. He currently divides his time between Kahnawà:ke and Victoria, BC.
Webinar: The Restoration Story of Sudbury with Dr. John Gunn
This event will walk you through the many lessons we can learn from the restoration efforts in Sudbury, Ontario which took the city from one of the world’s largest sources of sulphur pollution to a global leader in the regreening movement. Dr. John Gunn is the Director of the Vale Living with Lakes Centre where he runs his lab, a Laurentian Faculty member in the Department of Biology, and the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Stressed Aquatic Systems. He worked as a senior research scientist for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources for 25 years before joining Laurentian as a CRC in 2003. He is a founding member of the Cooperative Freshwater Ecology Unit (1989), an established research group based on a partnership between the Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Natural Resources and Laurentian University.
Webinar: Intergenerational Equity and Climate Change Commitments in Indigenous Treaties with Canada
The presentation is followed up with a question and answer question period, moderated by Laura Andrade. Professor Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, DPhil (Oxon), MEM (Yale), BCL&LLB (McGill), BA Hons (Carl/UVic), FRSA, JFR, Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor, University of Cambridge, Senior Director, Centre for International Sustainable Development Law & Executive Secretary, UNFCCC CoP26 Climate Law & Governance Initiative, is an award-winning expert jurist and professor of law and governance on sustainable development. Author/editor of 22 books and over 80 papers, including Sustainable Development Law (OUP) and Sustainable Development in International Courts and Tribunals (Routledge), public Leverhulme Lecturer on Advancing Ambition through Climate Law and Governance Innovation (Feb 2020) and Pandemic Recovery, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Law (Nov 2020), Professor Cordonier Segger also edits a Cambridge University Press series and serves on the editorial boards of five law journals. She is a Full Professor of Law at the University of Waterloo, Canada; chairs several experts commissions and the Future Board of Bit.Bio a Cambridge biomedical firm; and as former General Counsel to UN treaty bodies, she advises countries on negotiating and implementing treaties on climate change, biodiversity, trade, investment and natural resources. She is also Fellow in Law and Director of Studies for Law Graduates at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, where she is founding fellow of the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance and affiliated fellow of Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, also Laureate of the Justitia Regnorum Fundamentum Prize, the HE Judge CG Weeramantry International Justice Award and other honours.
Webinar: Legal and Mental Health Considerations of Climate Migration
Dr. Prabhu will use her unique dual expertise in law and psychiatry to discuss the complex legal and mental health considerations of climate migration. Dr. Prabhu obtained her medical degree from Dalhousie Medical School in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and completed residency training in adult psychiatry and a fellowship in forensic psychiatry at Yale. Between medical school and residency, she graduated from the McGill Faculty of Law in Montreal, Canada; she then practiced litigation at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and was a Deputy Counsel with the Independent Inquiry Commission (“the Volcker Inquiry”) which investigated allegations of fraud and corruption in the U.N. Oil-for-Food-Programme. As a Consulting Forensic Psychiatrist to the State of Connecticut, she provides opinions on high-risk cases, including persons found Not Guilty By Reason of Insanity. She testifies regularly in state and federal court and before the Psychiatric Security Review Board. She consults with legal organizations with regard to the psychological impact of lawyering and collaborative representation of clients who have mental illness. Her research areas of interest include forensic psychiatry, refugee mental health, climate migration, and issues at the nexus of health and international law. The presentation ends with a question and answer session with Dr. Prabhu, moderated by Laura Andrade.
Webinar: Just Transitions as a Paradigm for Climate Change Law
Dr. Harrington's presentation discusses using the 'just transitions' concept as a paradigm for creating laws and rules that address labor and other transitions resulting from climate change and the post-pandemic setting. The presentation is followed up by a question and answer session with Dr. Harrington, moderated by Toby Moore.
Webinar: Reframing the Multinational Corporation in the Climate Justice Context With Dr. Benjamin
Climate change is having significant detrimental impacts on developing countries, including small island developing states. These impacts are happening now, and are increasing in frequency and severity, leading to incidents of loss and damage, including climate-induced migration and displacement. Vulnerable communities within these countries are most at risk. Climate impacts are attributable to both state and non-state actors. Recent decisions at the UK Supreme Court have changed the way we normally view the separate legal personality of parent companies within multinational companies in the context of environmental and climate justice.
We invite you to keep up with Dr. Lisa Benjamin's academic works and blog pieces here
Webinar: Ecological Human Rights and the Climate Crisis with Carla Sbert
Ecological Human Rights and the Climate Crisis: A Critique of the Paris Agreement from the Lens of Ecological Law.
In this lecture, Carla introduces the lens of ecological law, an analytical tool developed to help understand the transition from contemporary law (environmental and other) to ecological law, and applies the lens to the Paris climate framework. From this basis, Carla offers some reflections on the intersection of the climate and ecological crises, human rights and human needs, and makes a case for ecological human rights. Participants were be invited to contribute to this reflection.
Operated by McGill Law Students’ Association, an undergraduate students’ association at McGill University. / Organisé par l’Association des étudiant.e.s en droit de McGill, une association d’étudiant.e.s de 1er cycle à l’Université McGill.
Webinar: Impacts of COVID-19 on Mobility Policies in the EU with Prof. Iris Goldner Lang
In this webinar, Prof. Iris Goldner Lang introduces us to the impacts of COVID-19 on mobility policies in the EU.
COVID-19 policies in the European Union have severely restricted free movement, migration, and asylum rights, This lecture will indicate the particularities of anti-COVID-19 mobility measures in the EU and disclose their implications for free movement of persons in the Schengen border-free area and for the right to seek asylum, as guaranteed by EU law
Webinar: Anthropocene Accountability Litigation with Prof. Abate
In this webinar, Professor Abate discusses “Anthropocene Accountability Litigation: Strategic Collaboration to Address Climate Change Impacts from “Common Enemies” in the Private Sector.”
This presentation offers a new perspective in the quest for climate justice. It addresses creative common law and statutory law theories that seek to hold fossil fuel companies and concentrated animal feeding operations (“CAFOs” or “factory farms”) accountable for their role as “common enemies” in harming humans, the environment, and animals by exacerbating climate change while profiting from their operations. Myriad cutting-edge lawsuits against these industries are underway in the U.S. in the past few years, but there has been no scholarly inquiry that unites the theories from the environmental law (fossil fuel companies) and animal law (CAFOs) domains into one analysis. This presentation will evaluate these efforts in a broader context to explore how the environmental and animal law movements can collaborate more effectively around the issue of climate change to secure mutual gains in protecting humans, animals, and the environment. It explores how the two movements need to leverage public and private governance mechanisms to promote transitions away from reliance on carbon-intensive fossil fuel use and methane-intensive factory farms as significant drivers of the U.S. economy at the expense of the environment, animals, and public health in the Anthropocene era.
Webinar: Ecological Human Rights and the Climate Crisis: A Critique of the Paris Agreement from the Lens of Ecological Law
Thursday, November 19, 2020 12:30 PM EST
In this lecture, Carla introduced the lens of ecological law, an analytical tool developed to help understand the transition from contemporary law (environmental and other) to ecological law, and apply the lens to the Paris climate framework. From this basis, Carla offered some reflections on the intersection of the climate and ecological crises, human rights and human needs, and make a case for ecological human rights. Participants were invited to contribute to this reflection, including by discussing the lessons we can draw from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Introducing the speaker:
Carla Sbert is an independent researcher in Danford Lake, Quebec. Born in Mexico, where she studied law at ITAM, she also holds an LLM from Harvard Law School and a PhD in law from the University of Ottawa. Before turning her focus to research on ecological law, Carla worked in environmental law and policy for twenty years. Her book The Lens of Ecological Law: A Look at Mining, was published in April by Edward Elgar.
Webinar: Impacts of COVID-19 on Mobility Policies in the EU with Prof. Iris Goldner Lang
November 12, 2020 12:30-1:30pm EST
In this webinar, Prof. Iris Goldner Lang will be introducing us to the impacts of COVID-19 on mobility policies in the EU.
COVID-19 policies in the European Union have severely restricted free movement, migration, and asylum rights, This lecture will indicate the particularities of anti-COVID-19 mobility measures in the EU and disclose their implications for free movement of persons in the Schengen border-free area and for the right to seek asylum, as guaranteed by EU law.
About the Author:
Iris Goldner Lang is a Jean Monnet professor of European Union law at the University of Zagreb – Faculty of Law. She is one of the coordinators of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence “EU’s Global Leadership in the Rule of Law”, the holder of the UNESCO Chair on Free Movement of People, Migration and Inter-Cultural Dialogue and a member of the Steering Committee of the UNESCO Unit for Bioethics and Law at the University of Zagreb – Faculty of Law. She works at the Department of European Public Law, which she chaired from 2013 until 2015. She held visiting positions and Harvard Law School and University College London (UCL). She was a John Harvey Gregory Visiting Professor of Law and World Organization and a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School in 2015/2016 and a Visiting Researcher at University College London (summer 2017) and at Harvard Law School (summer 2018). She was also an invited lecturer at the Court of Justice of the European Union, European Parliament, LSE, University of Stockholm, University of Vienna, University of Lisbon, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Alpbach Forum Summer School, Boston University, Temple University, etc.
She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Horizon 2020 project “Reconciling Science, Innovation and Precaution through the Engagement of Stakeholders" (RECIPES), led by Maastricht University. She is the president of the Croatian Society for European Law (FIDE national association), the Croatian representative in the Odysseus Academic Network for Legal Studies on Immigration and Asylum in Europe and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Academy of European Law (ERA). She is the Editor-In-Chief of the Croatian Yearbook of European Law and Policy and a member of the ERA Forum Advisory Board. She is the editor of three books and the author of numerous articles, chapters in books and an authored book.
Lecture Series: Professor Randall Abate
Anthropocene Accountability Litigation: Strategic Collaboration to Address Climate Change Impacts from “Common Enemies” in the Private Sector
This presentation offers a new perspective in the quest for climate justice. It addresses creative common law and statutory law theories that seek to hold fossil fuel companies and concentrated animal feeding operations (“CAFOs” or “factory farms”) accountable for their role as “common enemies” in harming humans, the environment, and animals by exacerbating climate change while profiting from their operations. Myriad cutting-edge lawsuits against these industries are underway in the U.S. in the past few years, but there has been no scholarly inquiry that unites the theories from the environmental law (fossil fuel companies) and animal law (CAFOs) domains into one analysis. This presentation will evaluate these efforts in a broader context to explore how the environmental and animal law movements can collaborate more effectively around the issue of climate change to secure mutual gains in protecting humans, animals, and the environment. It explores how the two movements need to leverage public and private governance mechanisms to promote transitions away from reliance on carbon-intensive fossil fuel use and methane-intensive factory farms as significant drivers of the U.S. economy at the expense of the environment, animals, and public health in the Anthropocene era.
Randall S. Abate is the inaugural Rechnitz Family and Urban Coast Institute Endowed Chair in Marine and Environmental Law and Policy, and a Professor in the Department of Political Science and Sociology, at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. He also serves as the Director of the Institute for Global Understanding at Monmouth. He teaches courses in domestic and international environmental law, climate justice, constitutional law, and animal law. Professor Abate joined the Monmouth faculty in 2018 with 24 years of full-time law teaching experience at six U.S. law schools. He has delivered lectures and taught international and comparative law courses on environmental and animal law topics in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Cayman Islands, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Qatar, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the U.K, and Vanuatu.
Facebook recording link: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=271300217314034