ABOUT OUR WEBINAR

In this webinar, we discuss how current western legal systems have failed to regulate industrial societies' relationship with the living world, and propose a new paradigm for western law and governance.

Ecological law maintains human activity within ecological limits such as planetary boundaries while ensuring social justice and equity as an essential element of an urgently needed radical pathway of change toward a perpetual, mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship. It also offers a systems-based analytical tool for organizing actions to promote the transition from environmental to ecological law.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS

GEOFF GARVER

Dr. Geoffrey Garver is a leading academic in the field of ecological law and governance and his recent book 'Ecological Law and the Planetary Crisis' sets out 'a legal guide for harmony on earth'. Geoff teaches environmental courses at McGill University and Concordia University in Montreal and coordinates law and governance research for the Leadership for the Ecozoic program, formerly the Economics for the Anthropocene Partnership. He is on the Steering Committee of the Ecological Law and Governance Association (elgaworld.org) and is active in the international degrowth movement. Geoff completed his PhD (Geography) at McGill in 2016, and has a B.S. (Chemical Engineering) from Cornell University (1982), a J.D. from Michigan law School (1987) and an LL.M. from McGill (2011).

KATY GWIAZDON

Kathryn (Katy) Gwiazdon, J.D. currently lives and works in Washington, D.C. and serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Environmental Ethics and Law, an international non-governmental organization based in the U.S. (501(c)3). The core of her work advances the Biosphere Ethics Initiative, a program (adopted by IUCN) that seeks to evolve and push law and governance norms to better protect our planet and its natural and human communities. The heart of the work consists of meeting with local communities around the world to learn about the values that underlie their actions and decision-making, connecting these communities with one another to better address shared challenges, highlighting their stories on the global stage to help inform and move legal norms, and then
support this work with inter-disciplinary scholarly research. Alongside her role as Executive Director, she teaches Public International Law and International Business Transactions at Northern Illinois University College of Law, and is a founding member of the Ecological Law and Governance Association (ELGA).

CARLA SBERT

Carla completed her Ph.D. at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Graduate Studies in Law in 2019. Her doctoral thesis, directed by CELGS’s professors Heather McLeod-Kilmurray and Nathalie Chalifour, explored the role law can play in the transition from the current economic-growth-based society to one based on ecological justice. In April 2020, Edward Elgar published The Lens of Ecological Law: A Look at Mining, based on this research (https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781839102127.xml). Previously, Carla studied law at ITAM in her native Mexico, received an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and worked for twenty years on environmental law and policy in different contexts. She is currently an independent researcher and aspiring self-sufficiency farmer.

ABOUT EARTH LAWS MONTH

The Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) is hosting a huge month of events throughout September - webinars, public lectures, workshops, virtual art exhibitions and more - to explore and celebrate our relationship with the living world. To find out about all our events, please visit: https://events.humanitix.com/t...

ABOUT AELA

The Australian Earth Laws Alliance is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to creating Earth-centred systems change, by increasing the understanding and practical implementation of Earth-centred governance. Our programs include a focus on law, economics, education, ethics, Indigenous knowledge systems and the arts.

For more information, please visit our website: www.earthlaws.org.au
Or get in touch - aela@earthlaws.org.au