UCL-KCL Postgraduate Environmental Law Symposium

On Thursday 1 May 2014 the 2nd UCL-KCL Postgraduate Environmental Law Symposium was held. It was organised by Emily Barritt (KCL), Kim Bouwer (UCL-Energy) and Larissa Boratti (UCL), and this year hosted by KCL at Somerset House. The day gave postgraduate students and researchers from the UK and abroad the opportunity to meet and share their research with a supportive audience of their peers. 

The day commenced with a warm and encouraging introductory talk from Professor Maria Lee from UCL Laws.  Professor Lee discussed the challenges and rewards of environmental law and the PhD process.  The pluralistic nature of the discipline of environmental law both imparts richness but also entails great disciplinary challenges.  She encouraged the delegates to think of their PhDs not simply as a process of the preparation of a thesis, but as an apprenticeship in academic life. 

The apprentice researchers came as far afield as Rome, Glasgow and Belfast and are in all stages of study.  The range extended from an LLM student ambitious to pursue PhD study (Terfa Ashwe, who fascinated the Sustainable Resources panel with her study of Natural Resource Governance in West Africa) to Chiara Feliziani, who has just submitted her thesis.  Feliziani is a veteran of the UCL-KCL environmental law symposium, and after her fascinating discussion of environmental governance in relation to waste management, was coaxed by UCL’s Professor Macrory to provide advice on the PhD process; delegates were urged to keep the goal in mind and manage their time carefully.  

The organisers had invited contributions in any area of environmental law and governance. The presentations represented an immense range of contemporary issues in environmental law and policy, including presentations across all levels of law and governance from international to domestic tort law.  Topic areas included waste, marine resources, environmental rights, climate change and energy efficiency and management of symbiotic resource networks.  

Support for the day was provided by the UCL Institute of Sustainable Resources, Faculty of Laws and the Centre for Law and the Environment, and KCL’s Dickson Poon School of Law. The panels were chaired by Robert McCracken QC of Francis Taylor Building, academics from UCL (Professors Maria Lee and Richard Macrory) and KCL (Drs Eloise Scotford and Phillippa Webb), and Dr Carrie Bradshaw of York University.