Past Events

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.