2017 Senior Scholarship Award
Jonathan Verschuuren
Professor of International and European Environmental Law - Tilburg Sustainability Center and Tilburg Law School
Extraordinary professor North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa
Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow - Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law, University of Sydney
Jonathan is a long time member of the IUCN World Commission for Environmental Law and contributor to the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law. He is currently a professor of International and European Environmental law at Tilburg Law School, Netherlands and has served as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the Australian Centre for Climate and the Environment, University of Sydney and an Extraordinary professor North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa.
Over the past 25 years, Jonathan has published more than 250 academic publications in the field of environmental law. His research comprises almost all sectors of environmental policy such as air, water, soil, waste, and biodiversity, as well as more general topics such as corporate social responsibility, the precautionary principle, transboundary cooperation, and environmental justice. He has led international book projects involving a variety of international authors, for instance: International Governance and Law. State Regulation and Non-State Law (Edward Elgar: 2008) and The Impact of Legislation. A Critical Analysis of Ex Ante Evaluation (Martinus Nijhoff/Brill: 2009).
Jonathan’s work also includes collaboration in several international research programmes, such as programme in which a South African-Dutch team of legal scholars intensively worked together on environmental governance issues in southern Africa (2005-2008); and an EU funded programme of a group of, mostly economists, from various European research institutes on the combined impact of climate change instruments, such as emissions trading and carbon taxes (2012-2015). In 2015, Jonathan received a prestigious Marie Skolodowska Curie fellowship under the EU’s Horizon 2020 research program for a two year project aimed at developing a regulatory framework to stimulate farmers to convert to climate smart agriculture. Some of his recent publications on this topic include: J. Verschuuren, Towards a Regulatory Design for Reducing Emissions from Agriculture: Lessons from Australia’s Carbon Farming Initiative, Climate Law, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2017), 1-51, J. Verschuuren, Stimulating Climate Smart Agriculture within the Boundaries of International Trade Law, Carbon and Climate Law Review, Vol. 10, No. 4 (2016), 177-186, and J. Verschuuren,The Paris Agreement on Climate Change: Agriculture and Food Security, European Journal of Risk Regulation, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2016), 54-57.
2017 Emerging Scholarship Award
Heline Sivini Ferreira
Heline is an Associate Professor at Pontifical Catholic University of Parana (PUCPR/Brazil), Director of International Affairs of the Law for a Green Planet Institute (IDPV/ Brazil) and member of the World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL/IUCN). She holds a Ph.D. in Law from Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC/Brazil), having completed her doctoral internship at the Centre for Environmental Law of Macquarie University (Australia).
Using interdisciplinary approaches and based on theories of late modernity, Heline’s main research interest is to explore how scientific uncertainty and risk can be integrated by law and legal decisions, ensuring the effectiveness of the right to an ecologically balanced environment for present and future generations. In recent years, she has also dedicated her time to Latin American studies, analysing the strength of Pachamama in different constitutional contexts. Heline is author of several books and articles in these fields, including: Estado De Direito Ambiental: Tendencias Aspectos Constitucionais E Diagnosticos (com Jose Rubens Morato Leite), Forense Universitaria, ISBN 8521803451 (85-218-0345-1). Her work was also selected as one of the best papers coming out of the 2005 Colloquium: "Experience, mistakes and challenges: The implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Brazil" (with Jose Rubens Morato Leite and Patryck de Araujo Ayala), in Michael Irwin Jeffery, Jeremy M. Firestone, Karen Bubna-Litic, eds., Biodiversity, conservation, law + livelihoods – Bridging the North-South divide, IUCN Academy of Environmental Law, 2005. Recently, she contributed “REDD+ as a climate change mitigation mechanism,” in Farber, D. and P Marjan (eds.) Climate Change Law (Edward Elgar 2016).
She is also active in research networks and non-governmental organizations that focus on constructing a distinctive environmental law culture.