Courage, Contributions and Compliance – Global Climate Law and Governance Commitments Under Fire?

Event Description

In these turbulent times for global collaboration to tackle climate change, Prof Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, inaugural Chair in Sustainable Development Law and Policy at Lucy Cavendish College in the University of Cambridge, is calling for awareness, education and action to secure climate justice on all levels, worldwide.

During her speaking tour, she is sharing insights from Courage, Contributions and Compliance: The Routledge Handbook of Climate Law and Governance (Routledge 2024), a new book by Prof Cordonier Segger, Prof Christina Voigt and Adv Zunaida Moosa-Wadiwala, with international lawyers and leaders from highly climate vulnerable countries and beyond who helped draft the Paris Agreement. Together, they explore emerging climate law and policy challenges, commitments and solutions. Starting from urgent calls from the United Nations (UN), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Elders, Indigenous leaders and others, her presentation (and the book) focus on the role of law and governance in scaling up global responses to climate change and advancing sustainability. She shares real-life examples of legal and institutional innovations from around the world which can foster compliance with the Paris Agreement and advance the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Even as some countries’ commitments collapse and the world struggles to tackle the existential threat of climate change, she highlights ways to raise ambition through legal and policy reform, and to further develop global climate law and governance.

This talk is organized by the McLachlin Professorship in Constitutional Law.

Speaker

Professor Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger FRSC FRSA WIJA, PhD (Cantab), DPhil (Oxon), MEM (Yale), BCL & LLB (McGill), BA Hons (Carl/UVic) holds the inaugural Chair in Sustainable Development Law and Policy at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches for the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law and the Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Governance, and serves as Law Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College. She also serves as Senior Director of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) based in McGill University, as Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Climate Law and Governance Initiative, Chair of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Biodiversity Law and Governance Initiative, Vice-President of the International Law Association (ILA) of Canada and Chair of the ILA Committee on International Law for the SDGs, also Councillor of the World Future Council, among other commitments. She also teaches law in the University of Victoria, Canada. 

As former senior legal advisor to the International Development Law Organization, the UNFCCC Presidency, the UN, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and others, and editor/board of several law journals and book series, she has published over 26 books and 160 papers, and is a co-recipient of the Climate Law and Governance Global Leadership Award, as well as laureate of the Justicia Fundamentum Regnorum Medal, the Weeramantry International Justice Award and other distinguished honours. She holds two PhDs of law, from Oxford and Cambridge, a masters from Yale, and law degrees from McGill, and directs the Democratising Education for Global Sustainability and Justice programme at the University of Cambridge, providing thousands of current and future law and policy leaders, especially in highly climate vulnerable countries, with access to online courses and engagement opportunities on bursary through international partnerships worldwide.