22 August 2011 | This was a joint seminar between CIL & APCEL (Asia-Pacific Centre for Environmental Law)
The Expertise of Environmental Lawyers
Introduction
Agreement over a definition of environmental law has proved elusive. Likewise, there has been ongoing intellectual dissatisfaction with the state of the subject. This has led to a situation in which there is little in the way of a constructive discourse about the nature and potential of environmental law. Such a discourse could be developed by asking a different question – what expertise is required so that someone can be called an environmental lawyer? Answering that question requires the recognition of two different types of expertise – contributory legal expertise and interactional interdisciplinary expertise. The nature of each of these types of expertise was discussed, as well as how their identification provides a firmer intellectual footing for the subject.
About the Speaker
Dr Liz Fisher, D Phil (Oxon) is a Reader in Environmental Law at Corpus Christi College and UL lecturer in the Faculty of Law. She undertakes comparative research in the areas of environmental law, risk regulation and administrative law. Her 2007 book, Risk Regulation and Administrative Constitutionalism, won the SLS Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship 2008. Recent work has focused on the problems created by interdisciplinarity in regulatory decision-making including the use of models in environmental regulation and the operational consequences of transparency in administrative law. She won an Oxford University Teaching Award in 2009 and was shortlisted for OUP National Law Teacher of the Year Award 2011. She also sits on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Environmental Law and the Editorial Committee of the Modern Law Review (the latter as co-editor of the Legislation Section). Fisher convenes the Environmental Law courses (including the postgraduate course in Comparative and Global Environmental Law course) and the Course in Legal Research Method in the Faculty.
