Jocelyn Stacey

Jocelyn Stacey is an Associate Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. She researches environmental crises and the visible and invisible ways in which law creates, regulates and prevents these events. Her work focuses on environmental assessment law, disaster law, climate change, emergency powers and the rule of law.  Her first book, The Constitution of the Environmental Emergency (Hart Publishing, 2018) addresses what the rule of law requires in light of our vulnerability to catastrophic environmental harm. A profile of her work on environmental emergencies and the rule of law can be found on the Research Portal.

With funding from SSHRC, Professor Stacey’s current work investigates how law regulates disaster as disconnected and exceptional events, contrary to the experiences of those most vulnerable to disaster and in spite of our current era of climate disruption. You can read about this project on the Research Portal. 

Professor Stacey works closely with First Nations on legal issues related to disasters, emergency powers and Indigenous jurisdiction,  She is President of the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation, a non-profit society dedicated to training law students and young lawyers in public interest environmental law litigation.

Professor Stacey supervises graduate students in the areas of disaster law, environmental assessment law, and the intersection between Canadian environmental law and Indigenous legal orders. If you are interested in researching in one of these areas, please send an email with a brief research proposal. Professor Stacey teaches Environmental Law and Administrative Law at UBC.

You can find Professor Stacey’s publications on the Allard Research Commons and on SSRN. 

• Environmental Law
• Administrative Law

Books:

The Constitution of the Environmental Emergency (Hart Publishing, 2018)

Reports:

Dada Nentsen Gha Yatastig/Tŝilhqot’in in the Time of COVID (Tsilhqot’in National Government, 2021) (with Crystal Verhaeghe and Emma Feltes)

Nagwediẑk'an gwaneŝ gangu ch'inidẑed ganexwilagh (The Fires Awakened Us) (Tsilhqot’in National Government, 2019) (with Crystal Verhaeghe and Emma Feltes)

Recent Publications:

“The Public Law Paradoxes of Climate Emergency Declarations” (2022) Transnational Environmental Law forthcoming

“Climate Disruption in Canadian Constitutional Law: References re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act” (2021) 33:3 Journal of Environmental Law 711

“Environmental Law” in Craig Forcese et al, eds, TheFederal Courts 50^thAnniversary(Irwin Law, 2021) 

“The Deliberative Dimensions of Modern Environmental Assessment Law” (2020) 43:2 Dalhousie Law Journal 865

“Vulnerability, Disaster Law and ‘the Beast’” (2018) 55.4 Alberta Law Review 853

“The Environmental, Democratic and Rule-of-Law Implications of Harper’s Environmental Assessment Legacy” (2016) 21:2 Review of Constitutional Studies 165

“The Promise of the Rule of (Environmental) Law” (2016) 53 OHLJ 681

“Can Pragmatism Function in Administrative Law?” (2016) Supreme Court Law Review (2d) 211 (Judicial Restraint: The Life and Law of Marshall E Rothstein) forthcoming (with Alice Woolley)

• Cited favourably in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at paras 79 (majority judgment) and 209 (concurring judgment)

“Doctoral Studies in Law: From the Inside Out” (2016) 39 Dal LJ 221 (with Dia Dabby and Bethany Hastie)

“The Environmental Emergency and the Legality of Discretion in Environmental Law” (2015) 52 OHLJ 983

 “The Rule-of-Law Underpinnings of Endangered Species Protection: Minister of Fisheries and Oceans v David Sukuzi Foundation, 2012 FCA 40” (2014) 27 JELP 57

You can find Professor Stacey’s publications on the Allard Research Commonsand on SSRN