2010 Environmental Law Scholarship Awards

On 14 September 2010, the Academy announced the two winners of the Second Annual Scholarship Prize at the Eighth Colloquium in Ghent, Belgium. The Prizes were awarded to Professor Tim Stephens of the University of Sydney, Australia and to Professor Jamie Benidickson of the University of Ottawa, Canada.

The announcements were made by Professor Melissa Powers of Lewis & Clark University (USA), co-chair of the Academy’s Research Committee and Professor Rob Fowler, Chair of the Academy’s Governing Board. Both noted that through an extensive nomination and review process, the two scholars had been recognized for the: originality and intellectual influence of their scholarship, international significance of their scholarship, enhancement of research collaboration among scholars and persons from different institutions and regions and, advancement of the aims of the IUCN Academy.

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Photo: University of Sydney

Dr Timothy Stephens

Dr Timothy Stephens BA (Hons) Syd LLB (Hons) Syd M.Phil (Geography) Cantab PhD (Law) Syd is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney and a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia.

Dr Stephens is an international lawyer and human geographer, and his research on environmental governance straddles both of these disciplines. Tim’s research has been published in dozens of articles, chapters, comments and review essays. His recent major publications include International Courts and Environmental Protection (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009), which assesses the role of international courts in addressing environmental disputes, and The International Law of the Sea (co-authored with Professor Don Rothwell, Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2010), which presents a fresh perspective on the contemporary law of the sea having regard, among other things, to the critical environmental challenges of climate change and ocean acidification.

Dr Stephens teaches in the environmental and international law programs at the University of Sydney, and is a member of the Faculty’s Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law and the Sydney Centre for International Law. With Susan Shearing, Dr Stephens edits the Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law. Tim is a regular media commentator on issues of environmental law and policy.

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Photo: University of Ottawa

Professor Jamie Benidickson

Professor Jamie Benidickson is a member of the Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, where his teaching subjects include environmental law, sustainable development law, water law and legal history. He has written articles, book chapters and reports on a range of environmental subjects including water law, forest management, and protected areas. His major publications include The Culture of Flushing: A Social and Legal History of Sewage ; The Temagami Experience: Recreation, Resources and Aboriginal Rights in the Northern Ontario Wilderness ; and Idleness, Water and a Canoe: Reflections on Paddling for Pleasure, as well as a Canadian text on Environmental Law.

In addition to his academic writing, Jamie has served in a variety of capacities with public inquiries and royal commissions in Canada, among them, the Walkerton Inquiry which proposed a contemporary strategy for safe drinking water. He was appointed Director of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law in 2004 and served with Professor Ben Boer as Co-Director until 2008.

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Jamie Benidickson and Ben Boer, Ghent, Belgium

Jamie Benidickson was a participant in the Colloquium and, in accepting the award, expressed his deep appreciation to the many scholars and institutions that have helped build the IUCN Academy over the past six years. His co-winner, Tim Stephens, was similarly appreciative. Although he was not at the Colloquium, he conveyed his sincere thanks to the Academy, through his Sydney colleague, Ben Boer.