On 3 November, the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London launched a new Centre to address the role governments and organisations play in deepening the climate crisis.
The inaugural lecture was delivered by Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Chair of Global Law, School of Law, at Queen Mary University London.
The Centre for Climate Crime and Justice seeks to produce cutting-edge research on the most pressing environmental issues of our time, emphasising legal but also sociological and civil society approaches to the criminalisation of environmental harms underpinning the climate emergency.
The Centre is especially interested in developing collaborative relationships with civil society and activists on the ground whose work is fundamental to exposing ecocidal practices and harmful industrial activities, and proposing solutions for justice and environmental sustainability.
The Centre will offer a hub for academics, students, activists, communities, and others on a number of interlinked research themes, including extractivism and corporate criminality; colonial environmental destruction; food insecurity; climate-related migration and displacement; environmental racism; social and economic justice; and the criminalisation of environmental defenders.
The School of Law is also excited to announce that David Whyte, currently Professor of Socio-legal Studies at the University of Liverpool, will join the School in February 2022 to lead the initiative.
Professor Penny Green, Head of the School of Law, said: ‘The new Centre for Climate Crime and Justice is a particularly timely and exciting development for the Law School. Under the leadership of Richard Falk and David Whyte the Centre will build and extend the School’s already outstanding research and teaching on crimes of the powerful and environmental harm. Bringing together academia and civil society to understand, challenge and redress the crimes that fuel the climate emergency is a mission the School is very proud to lead.’