Submit an Article

The MJSDL is a bilingual, student-run, peer-reviewed academic journal based at McGill University's Faculty of Law in Montreal, Canada. As an interdisciplinary publication, we encourage submissions from researchers, academics, practitioners, policy-makers, and students in a range of fields. We aim to provide a forum for debate and critical analysis about the economic, societal, and environmental issues surrounding sustainable development law and policy.

If you choose to write an article, you are free to write about anything broadly related to sustainable development law and policy! We welcome submissions in English or French on a rolling basis. Articles should be between 10,000 and 15,000 words, excluding footnotes. You can also choose to write a case comment on recent jurisprudence or a book review on recent scholarship. These pieces should be between 5,000 and 10,000 words. We are eager to learn more about your perspective and research!

Additionally, we are thrilled to present the following Volume 20 editorial prompt—Rewilding: Balancing people and biodiversity in sustainable development. “Rewilding” is a progressive idea in conservation biology that seeks to actively restore ecosystems to a level of integrity that can be sustained without consistent human intervention. This raises a question made more urgent by increasing biodiversity loss: how do we balance the needs of people and those of the planet? We invite our authors to engage with the following focus questions or analogous ones, if they are seeking inspiration:

• Social and economic impacts: At perhaps its most controversial, rewilding calls for the reintroduction of apex predators, often critical to ecosystem functioning. Is the reintroduction of apex predators worth the risk of human-wildlife conflict? How can these risks be mitigated? What populations tend to carry the weight of these risks or reap the majority of the benefits? Where should responsibility lie if a government, individual or entity reintroduces a predator or encourages its return (i.e. wolves, coyotes, panthers), and the species does damage to livestock or harm to humans? Should this depend on the risk management steps taken by the farmer or victim? Where conflicts arise, should they be handled by courts or administrative bodies? Should individuals or entities be allowed to rewild on their own land? If they do, what obligations or benefits should they receive for doing so?

• Frameworks and best practices for conservation: Does good conservation mean keeping people out? If not, how do we determine what human activity is allowable or obligated? What are the best legal and policy frameworks for regulating those human rights and obligations? How should best conservation practices differ between rural and urban spaces? Are proposals to conserve key biodiversity hotspots constituting 50% of earth’s surface feasible? Do bottom-line standards like this create a risk of overuse of non-hotspot zones? Put another way, can a globalized approach to biodiversity conservation be an effective substitute for local conservation? If we do approach biodiversity conservation under a globalized framework, how should we address the global inequities in distribution of biodiversity hotspots?

• Interrogating the notion of “wildness”: What does it mean for nature to be “wild”? Does this create a false dichotomy between humans and nature? Or is there a meaningful distinction between different states of nature, such as a grove of trees in a city park versus in an old-growth forest? Can this be understood and accounted for by law and policy in a way that does not detrimentally impact the ability of urban populations to protect themselves and their environment from threats such as pollution, and improve their access to green spaces? How do these quandaries impact the ways courts do and ought to interpret terms such as “environment”, “nature”, or what it means to have an adverse effect on the environment? What clarity can Indigenous perspectives bring to our understanding of these questions of definition and value?

• Changing legal doctrines: How can Western legal doctrines be adapted to reflect changing notions of the relationship between humans and the environment? ? How do Indigenous legal doctrines reflect different understandings of the relationship between humans and nature than Western doctrines? Should increasing understanding and acceptance of climate change as a phenomenon where human activities have widespread consequences change our understanding of what is a foreseeable consequence or proximate cause under law? How do Indigenous legal traditions demarcate the limits of our responsibility for others and the planet, and could this inform alternatives to the doctrines of foreseeability and proximity? How successful are current efforts to account for scientific uncertainty in law and policy, for example through the precautionary principle? Should the idea of human embeddedness in nature change our understanding of fundamental property doctrines, such as possession?

Articles can be submitted directly to the journal for initial review by e-mailing submissions in Microsoft word format to jsdlp.eic.law@gmail.com or by sending a hard copy to our mailing address (please note: hard copies must be submitted with an electronic copy on a USB). After an initial evaluation, authors will be informed of the status of their article within two to three weeks. Alternatively, interested individuals can contact the Executive directly at jsdlp.exec.law@gmail.com to begin the editorial process.

We accept submissions on a rolling basis. Submissions must be exclusive. Please send your submissions to Ella Johnson, Editor-in-Chief at jsdlp.eic.law@gmail.com.