Webinar on the environmental rights gap in the Constitutional Court

Our first webinar in 2023 focuses on the Constitutional Court’s role in enforcing environmental rights in South Africa

On 22 February 2023, in collaboration with the Global Environmental Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape’s Faculty of Law, Melanie Murcott, ELA Chairperson and Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town, Department of Public Law, spoke on the Environmental Rights Gap in the South African Constitutional Court’s Jurisprudence.

 

Building on the burgeoning discourse on environmental constitutionalism around the world, Murcott traced the recent history of the South African Constitutional Court’s environmental rights jurisprudence, to reveal that overall the Court has not, of late, contributed a great deal to key developments in South African environmental law. She then reflected on some of the ways the Court could strengthen environmental rights jurisprudence in South Africa, including to reinforce important environmental outcomes emerging from the High Courts and the Supreme Court of Appeal. In particular, she encouraged the embrace of a legal theory of transformative environmental constitutionalism by the Court when next it has the opportunity to adjudicate disputes that implicate the environmental right. Given that humanity is facing a climate crisis with myriad justice and human rights implications, she argued that it is vital that the Court takes up this call.

Melanie, LLB (UCT), LLM (UP), LLD (NWU), is an Associate Professor based at the University of Cape Town’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Law. She is the author of ‘Transformative Environmental Constitutionalism’ (Brill, 2022), a book that explains the intersections among social, environmental and climate (in)justice in a time of planetary emergency, and how the courts in South Africa (and beyond) can contribute to developing law that is more suited to responding to injustice in this context. Her research focus is currently climate law and governance (in comparative perspective). To this end she runs a global research project with Dr Maria Antonia Tigre (Columbia Law School) for the Global Network on Human Rights and the Environment titled ‘Climate Litigation in the Global South’, and is co-editing, with Dr Emily Webster (posthumously, formerly at Cambridge University) and Dr Myriam Gicquello (Newcastle University), a volume titled ‘Adjudicating Climate Change: Interdisciplinary Perspectives’. She is also involved in establishing the field of animal law in South Africa with Amy P. Wilson. Amy and Melanie are producing a forthcoming Routledge volume titled ‘Animal Law and Welfare in South Africa’, the first scholarship of this kind in the country. Melanie is an activist scholar, including in her roles as admitted attorney, the Chairperson of the Environmental Law Association of South Africa, and director of Animal Law Reform South Africa. The published paper in Constitutional Court Review developed since the presentation, as well as other important environmental law scholarship, is available below.

 

Date
22 Feb 2023

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Time
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

Our first webinar in 2023 focuses on the Constitutional Court’s role in enforcing environmental rights in South Africa

On 22 February 2023, in collaboration with the Global Environmental Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape’s Faculty of Law, Melanie Murcott, ELA Chairperson and Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town, Department of Public Law, spoke on the Environmental Rights Gap in the South African Constitutional Court’s Jurisprudence.

 

Building on the burgeoning discourse on environmental constitutionalism around the world, Murcott traced the recent history of the South African Constitutional Court’s environmental rights jurisprudence, to reveal that overall the Court has not, of late, contributed a great deal to key developments in South African environmental law. She then reflected on some of the ways the Court could strengthen environmental rights jurisprudence in South Africa, including to reinforce important environmental outcomes emerging from the High Courts and the Supreme Court of Appeal. In particular, she encouraged the embrace of a legal theory of transformative environmental constitutionalism by the Court when next it has the opportunity to adjudicate disputes that implicate the environmental right. Given that humanity is facing a climate crisis with myriad justice and human rights implications, she argued that it is vital that the Court takes up this call.

Melanie, LLB (UCT), LLM (UP), LLD (NWU), is an Associate Professor based at the University of Cape Town’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Law. She is the author of ‘Transformative Environmental Constitutionalism’ (Brill, 2022), a book that explains the intersections among social, environmental and climate (in)justice in a time of planetary emergency, and how the courts in South Africa (and beyond) can contribute to developing law that is more suited to responding to injustice in this context. Her research focus is currently climate law and governance (in comparative perspective). To this end she runs a global research project with Dr Maria Antonia Tigre (Columbia Law School) for the Global Network on Human Rights and the Environment titled ‘Climate Litigation in the Global South’, and is co-editing, with Dr Emily Webster (posthumously, formerly at Cambridge University) and Dr Myriam Gicquello (Newcastle University), a volume titled ‘Adjudicating Climate Change: Interdisciplinary Perspectives’. She is also involved in establishing the field of animal law in South Africa with Amy P. Wilson. Amy and Melanie are producing a forthcoming Routledge volume titled ‘Animal Law and Welfare in South Africa’, the first scholarship of this kind in the country. Melanie is an activist scholar, including in her roles as admitted attorney, the Chairperson of the Environmental Law Association of South Africa, and director of Animal Law Reform South Africa. The published paper in Constitutional Court Review developed since the presentation, as well as other important environmental law scholarship, is available below.

 

Date
22 Feb 2023

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Time
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm