Associated researchers

Felipe Clavijo-Ospina is a lawyer from the Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga and a constitutional lawyer from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He has been an advisor to the Presidency of the Republic of Colombia and to the Colombian Congress. Felipe has been an official of the Attorney General’s Office and of the Constitutional Court where, as an assistant to the Magistrate, he wrote the iconic decision that declared the Atrato River as a subject of rights. He has worked with the government of the Federal Republic of Germany from GIZ-Colombia. He was Superintendent of Lands and Legal Vice-President of the banking programs for agrarian reform. He is currently a member of the board of directors of the Earth Law Center (USA) and professor and researcher at the Universidad El Bosque (Bogotá) with several articles published on the rights of Nature with the Universities Externado (Colombia), Cambridge (UK) and Sciènces Po (France).

His publications can be consulted on his Google scholar page:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=en&hl=en&user=rxd6Yo8AAAAJ

She teaches in the ‘Environmental Studies’ Master’s programme at EHESS (Paris) and is a research associate at UMR 7324 CITERES (CItés, TERritoires, Environnement, Sociétés de l’Univ. de Tours). Her research focuses on the philosophical consequences of the ecological crisis, the anthropocene and the rights of Nature. She is developing a field philosophy to explore transformations in the forms of terrestrial habitation and interspecific dialogue through an ecocentric approach to living environments. She is co-founder and member of the editorial board of the online journal Terrestres.org.

Since 2019, she has been an active member of the ‘Towards a Parliament of the Loire’ collective, and is currently working with the Val de Loire – Unesco Mission to set up a Loire Territory School. She is also vice-president of the Loire-Brittany Basin Scientific Council. Sophie Gosselin co-founded, with David ge Bartoli, the cultural and artistic organisation TerrAnima, which develops research-action-creation projects in a variety of forms: artistic workshops and popular ecology workshops, and the creation of performances or interspecific institutions such as the Diplomatic Council of River Basins in Geneva (2022-2024).

She has published a number of articles that take note of ecological issues to rethink our sensitive relationship with the world, as well as with art, care and politics.
She also co-authored with David Gé Bartoli the book La condition terrestre, habiter la Terre en communs, published by Editions du Seuil in October 2022, which won the Prix du livre Environnement 2023. The book looks at contemporary transformations in political space and the institutional inventions that have taken place there, based on the consequences of the ecological disaster and the emergence of the rights of Nature movement. The book articulates a decolonial, ecosocial and ecofeminist approach.

His real name is David Guignebert, and he is a philosopher, artist and writer. With Sophie Gosselin, he is co-author of Le toucher du monde – Techniques du naturer, published by Dehors (2019) and La condition terrestre – Habiter la Terre en communs, published by Seuil (2022), which won the Prix du livre Environnement 2023. In each book, they approach from an ecocentric perspective the question of nature and institutions. They rethink a dynamic, inventive and cosmic nature (the “naturer”), which situates human actions in more than human relations and in terrestrial time: Geomemory. To the human condition is added a terrestrial condition, which commits all the inhabitants of the same living environment, human and non-human, to participate in situated institutions, in direct link with the natural commons and the social uses that derive from them: “Terrestrial Councils” constituted by eco-social practices.

David ge Bartoli is also involved in various associative activities linked to popular education practices linked to ecology: he is a member of the Université populaire pour la Terre (Tours), which he has been directing since 2018. It is also a member of the “Collectif vers un Parlement de Loire”, created in 2022, which aims to develop an ecocentric culture (arts-sciences-inhabitants) and promotes values in favor of the rights of Nature and the respect of living environments: the river “Loire” is envisaged as a legal entity, with its own character and agentivity.

This potential institution, initiated in 2019 by Camille de Toledo and POLAU, is a first in Europe and was recognized in July 2024 by the UN Secretary General – Harmony with Nature as a contribution to the emergence of the “Earth Assemblies”. In 2024, David ge Bartoli also initiated a Diplomatic Watershed Council in Geneva (Switzerland), a potential institution aiming to promote bioregional re-habitation practices and to make water the vector of a common cohabitation between humans and non-humans and a vital condition for life on Earth: interspecific diplomacy for a democracy of water peoples. With Sophie Gosselin, he co-founded the cultural and artistic organization TerrAnima, which develops research-action and creation projects combining the arts and the sensitive sciences, and offers practices and performances in situ, developing a “ritual art” linked to an ecology of care for living environments.

Daniel Turp (www.danielturp.quebec) is a graduate of the University of Montreal and the University of Cambridge and holds a doctorate (summa cum laude) from the University of Law, Economics and Social Sciences of Paris (Paris II). In 1989, he earned the prestigious Directed Studies diploma from the Academy of International Law in The Hague.

Mr. Turp is a professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Montreal. He teaches international public law, international and constitutional human rights law, and advanced constitutional law. He is president of the Association Québécoise de Droit Constitutionnel, the board of directors of the Société Québécoise de Droit International, and the Research Institute on Self-Determination of Peoples and National Independence (IRAI).

Professor Turp was elected member of the House of Commons of Canada where he represented the Bloc Québécois and the riding of Beauharnois-Salaberry between 1997 and 2000. He was also elected member of the National Assembly of Quebec for the Parti Québécois and the riding of Mercier between 2003 and 2008.

He is the author of several books and articles on constitutional and international law, including La Constitution Québécoise.

Victor DAVID holds a doctorate in law and social sciences from the Université de Paris Sciences et Lettres/EHESS, and is a Research Fellow at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), member of the Savoirs, Environnement et Sociétés (SENS) UMR (IRD-CIRAD-UPV Montpellier).

He is currently a visiting researcher at the Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie (IMBE) in Marseille.

His current research activities and expertise focus on the evolution of environmental law, and he is a renown specialist on the rights of Nature.

He is also interested in the presence of indigenous populations and cultural and legal pluralism. During his assignment in New Caledonia (2011-2020), he also focused on the law and political strategies for adapting to climate change in the South Pacific, the legal protection of environmental displaced persons in Oceania and the geopolitics of Oceania, as well as the legal status of water in a context of pluralism.

Victor DAVID coordinates the CEPIL project (2014-2024) providing scientific support for the participatory drafting of the Environmental Code of the Loyalty Islands Province in New Caledonia, taking into account Kanak culture on the basis of comparative law studies.

As part of the IRD’s Voluntary Commitments to the United Nations Conference on the Oceans, he is also responsible for feasibility studies on the recognition of the Pacific Ocean (2017 – #OceanAction41675) and, more recently, the Mediterranean Sea (2022 – #OceanAction46735) as natural legal entities.

Since December 2022 he has been a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL). From September 2019 to July 2023 he was a member of the IPBES Capacity-Building Task Force. He is a research associate of the Quebec-based International Observatory for the Rights of Nature.

Kathryn Furlong’s research program focuses on current issues in water management and governance. She is primarily concerned with the social and environmental consequences of water management, the effect of political and economic restructuring, and the challenges pertaining to municipal governance.

Her research brings together economic, urban and environmental disciplines while addressing issues related to governance, regulation, municipal service delivery, socio-technical networks, and the links between society and the environment.

Her current research projects focus on the delivery of water services in Colombia and the Netherlands by municipal corporations, service management models in Canada, infrastructure management in a socio-technical context, problems related to drinking water quality, and projects that seek to improve access to drinking water services in Colombia.

Dr. Patricia Urtega-Crovetto is a researcher and associate professor at the Academic Department of Law of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. Her research interests focus on legal and political issues affecting natural resources and indigenous peoples in the Amazon and Andean region.

In addition to her work with regional and national indigenous organizations in Peru, she has worked as a researcher at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development and has been a visiting scholar at both the Ibero-American Institute of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and the Max Planck Institute in Halle, Germany. She is also a member of the ethics committee of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru and a member of the Executive Board of the International Commission for Legal Pluralism.

She is currently Director of the Centre for Legal Research, Training and Consultancy (CICAJ). Her publications can be consulted at : http://www.pucp.edu.pe/profesor/patricia-urteaga-crovetto/publicacion/

Bianca De Marchi Moyano is expert in social sciences, with MSc and PhD degrees in territorial development. She is researcher of the International Studies Institute, in the University Arturo Prat of Chile. She coordinates interdisciplinary teams and teaches on research methodology and academic text production at the postgraduate programs in Bolivia and Chile. She researches, evaluates, and publishes on issues of socio-spatial mobility, geographic history, and borders in South America.

After completing a bachelor’s degree in economics at the Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City, Professor José Antonio Martinez de la Torre worked for eight years in the country’s Ministry of Finance and at the Mexican Institute of Foreign Trade. He then completed a Master’s degree in Economic Development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1985, he became a professor in the Department of Economics at the Autonomous University of Baja California South (UABCS) in the city of La Paz, where he now lives and works. He then completed his Ph.D. on the use, management, and preservation of natural resources at the Northeastern Biological Research Center, where he focused on the field of environmental and natural resource economics.

Today, his research focuses on the field of sustainable development with an emphasis on its socio-economic aspect, both in teaching and research, and in social and academic organizations related to this topic.

Prof. Hugo Muñoz Ureña is a Catedrático professor at the University of Costa Rica. He holds a doctorate in law from the University of Nantes (France) and is a researcher at the Legal Research Chair in Food Diversity and Security at l’Université Laval (Quebec, Canada). He is a member of the Right to Food Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean (RFO-LAC). His research focuses on food law, consumer protection law, and environmental law.

Grant Wilson is the Executive Director & Directing Attorney of Earth Law Center. He is a leading expert on the Rights of Nature, ecocentric law, water law, international environmental law, and human environmental rights. For the last decade, he has defended the rights and interests of Nature all over the world, including by writing new Rights of Nature laws and winning decisive courtroom victories for rivers and other ecosystems. He is also a lead editor of the forthcoming law school casebook. Grant earned a J.D. with a Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law from Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.

Dr. Jeanne-Hélène Jugie is a facilitator of water issues at the Comité ZIP Jacques Cartier and a course lecturer in environmental geography at the Université de Montréal. She is working on developing a territorial ecology approach for the St. Lawrence River to improve water quality, restore or preserve wetlands and bodies of water, and promote safe access to the river. She has acquired extensive teaching experience and is currently developing expertise in awareness and consultation. Her training in urban planning and land development allows her to gain a broad understanding of the issues facing Greater Montreal.

François Xavier Saluden is a lecturer and researcher in water law and international law at the Université de Montréal, Université du Québec à Montréal and Université Laval. He teaches Quebec, Canadian and international water law, public international law, international environmental law, international humanitarian law and post-conflict reconstruction, international human rights law, and specific fileds of European law. He is in charge of the Summer School on Human Rights of the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CERIUM). He integrates his research in active pedagogy and alternative teaching methods.

He conducts doctoral research at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Pr. Geneviève Bastid Burdeau) on cooperation and protection regimes for actors in dams of international interest.

He acts as a rapporteur or researcher on specific issues in cases involving international law, watercourses law, the law of the sea and maritime law, and professional law.

Catherine Iorns Magallanes is a Professor of Law at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. She has more than 25 years’ experience on indigenous rights, environmental law, international law and statutory interpretation, and has received awards for her environmental law teaching and research.

Prof. Iorns is also the Academic Adviser to the NZ Council of Legal Education, a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, and a member of the International Law Association Committee on the Implementation of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Shrishtee is a young activist- researcher from India. She is a member of Kalpavriksh, a 40 year old environment action group.

Shrishtee’s research is focused on documenting, researching, and networking on radical alternatives to dominant systems of statism, capitalism, patriarchy and other forms of concentration of power. Her specific focus is on exploring indigenous, traditional, and customary ways of living, decision-making and their underlying worldviews.

She helps in coordinating the process of alternatives confluence in India called-Vikalp Sangam that aims to weave together the grassroots processes on alternatives. She also helps in coordinating a global process called the Global Tapestry of Alternatives which aims at creating exchanges, synergies, cross-learning, and collaboration amongst the various radical alternative and social/ecological justice movements around the world. She is active with other social movements and youth groups in India.

Shrishtee has been researching and networking on Rights of Nature in South Asia with particular focus on rivers. She helped in organising the dialogue on Rights of Rivers in South Asia in Delhi, India early this year and has been facilitating the team to take forward the process in India and the rest of South Asia. She is also helping in drafting the petition note to the Supreme Court in India on granting rights to rivers.

Shrishtee has masters in Development Studies.

Dr Erin O’Donnell is a water law and policy specialist and is recognized internationally for her research into the groundbreaking new field of legal rights for rivers, and the challenges and opportunities these new rights create for protecting the multiple social, cultural and natural values of rivers. Her work is informed by comparative analysis across Australia, New Zealand, the USA, India, Colombia, and Chile, and her book, Legal Rights for Rivers, is available now. She is a research fellow at the Melbourne Law School, and in 2018, she was appointed to the inaugural Birrarung Council, the voice of the Yarra River.

In 2017, river protection and management experienced an unprecedented shift, which fundamentally altered the status of rivers in law. Four rivers were recognized legal persons: the Whanganui in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers in India, and the Río Atrato in Colombia. In Victoria, the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act recognised the Birrarung/Yarra River as a living and integrated entity, an Australian first. This legislation is also Australia’s first statute to include a title and preamble in Woiwurrung, the language of the Traditional Owners. The new legislation centres the voices and values of the Wurundjeri, and commits to integrated management of a complex urban waterway over the long-term. A suite of legal tools, including strategic planning, alignment of the actions of public agencies, and creation of the new Birrarung Council as the ‘voice’ of the Yarra River, are re-shaping our relationship with the river. However, there is a great deal of uncertainty about what these novel legal developments will mean in practice. Growing international experience of rivers with rights shows that legal power brings new opportunities, but it can also fracture relationships between people and rivers.

Jesús Alfonso Flórez López is a theologian from the Javeriana University of Bogotá, an anthropologist from the National University of Bogotá, Doctor of Anthropology from the University of Paris VIII, and a postdoctoral fellow in humanities from the National University of Córdoba-Argentina.

He assisted organizations of indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian communities in the department of Chocó and the Pacific coast of Colombia in defense of their territorial, ethnic and cultural rights, as well as the victims of the conflict in the construction of the peace process in Colombia.

He is currently Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Universidad Autónoma de la Oeste in Cali-Colombia. (http://www.uao.edu.co/diruao/facultad-de-humanidades-y-artes/jesus-alfonso-florez-lopez/)

David Cordero-Heredia is an Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Human Rights Centre of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. He has been a visiting professor at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar (UASB), the Universidad de las Americas (UDLA), and the University of Azuay (UDA). From 2018 to 2019, he co-taught the International Human Rights Clinic: Policy Advocacy at Cornell Law School as a Senior Teaching Postdoctoral Fellow. His research work deals with the interaction of social movements and the legal field with a focus on indigenous peoples.

Claudia Brindis is an expert and facilitator at the continental level of the UN Harmony with Nature program, and strategic partner for Mexico of the international organization Earth Law Center.

In 2016, she co-founded the First International Forum on the Rights of Mother Earth in Mexico and the Derechos de la Madre Tierra Mexico collective. In 2017, she was a member of the group that managed the inclusion of the rights of Nature in the new Constitution of Mexico City. In 2018, she was coordinator of the Living Rivers Forum in Puebla, Mexico. In 2019, she was coordinator of the international event for the protection of sacred rivers Kiva Kumbha Mela 2019 (India).

She is a collaborator in public policy initiatives such as the inclusion of the rights of Nature in the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, the new General Water Law, the Mexico City Water Law, and the River Rights Bill in the State of Oaxaca. She is also a presenter in various forums on the rights of nature, river rights, water and sanitation, climate change, protection, restoration and governance in environmental issues. In addition, she is a teacher, therapist, coach and facilitator specialized in human development, community development, environmental education and environmental consulting.

Imer B. Flores (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México [bachelor & phD, UNAM; LLM, Harvard Law School) is a tenured professor-researcher at both Law School and Legal Research Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and Director of the Adjudication and Legislation Observatory Program (OLA-IIJ). He is a fellow member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences (Academia Mexicana de las Ciencias, AMC), and member of the National System of Researchers (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores, SNI) where he is also part of the social sciences ruling commission. He has been awarded with PRIDE-D and SNI III distinctions.

He has been visiting professor and researcher of law at Ramapo College of New Jersey (Fulbright Scholar in Residence), Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, Center for Transnational Legal Studies, inter alia. Co-founder of Problema. Anuario de Filosofía y Teoría del Derecho, founder and former Director of an Institutional Deliberation Agenda (ADI-IIJ), and former Academic Secretary at National Autonomous University of Mexico’ Law School, Professor Flores is also author of over one hundred fifty articles, as well as author, compiler, coordinator and editor of around twenty books including Problemas Contemporáneos de la Filosofía del Derecho (2005) and Doctrina Constitucional Mexicana (2017).

Cecilia Inés Domínguez is a lawyer graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, with a degree in Animal Law from the Inter-American Open University, and a degree in Child Law from the Faculty of Economic and Legal Sciences of the National University of La Pampa. She practices in litigation in criminal law, animal law, family law, and child and adolescent law.

Cecilia is very committed to working day after day in the fight for the recognition of the rights of animals and the environment as subjects of rights, as well as in the dissemination and constant awareness of the inherent value that each of the species that make up the planet Earth has.

For her, it is essential to ensure training, awareness and education on the importance and respect that all living beings deserve.

Brettel Dawson is an Associate Professor of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University (Ottawa, Ontario). She teaches in the areas of legal personhood, the environment, and property law. She calls herself to continually consider what a legal education is for on a planet with a biosphere, and to adapt her teaching accordingly. She is a recognized expert in judicial education design and social context education for judges. Her research focuses on judging and judicial decision-making.

Brettel was born in New Zealand and holds dual citizenship with Canada where she has lived since 1983. She holds an LL.B. (Hons) degree from the University of Canterbury and an LL.M from Osgoode Hall Law School in Canada. She was appointed to the faculty at Carleton University in 1986. She was Chair of the Department of Law between 1994-1999 and a member of the University Senate. She is a past co-editor of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law. She was the Education Director at the National Judicial Institute until 2016. She is a grateful breast cancer survivor.

Isabel Verdaguer Foz is the founder of Biotopnatura and of the campaign “the rights of trees”. In her undergraduate studies, she obtained a degree in tourism, a technical degree in gardening and landscaping and a postgraduate degree in management of public green spaces. Her passion for animals also led her to qualify as a veterinary assistant and restoration technician at wildlife recovery centers, as well as training at the Mona Foundation on primate ethology and at the Academy of Ideas on animal ethology. She has also been trained with the association Signatus in biology and behavior of canidae, and in particular of the Iberian wolf.

She has worked in CRARC projects for the safeguard and awareness of reptiles, and in Signatus for education and awareness of the wolf, where she continues to collaborate. Her vocation for the plant world led her to enroll in different courses at Tel Aviv University on plant biology, behavior, senses and communication, and she is currently an instructor in a postgraduate course organized by the UdG (University of Girona) and the Selvans Association on the senses and communication of plants.

In 2016 she became a Therapeutic Forest Guide for the Association of Forest Therapy (ANFT) (California), and in 2018 she trained at UDG as a Selvans Therapeutic Forest Guide. She completed the postgraduate in Spiritual Meanings and Values of Nature at the University of Girona (UdG), and is currently training (third year) as a Gestalt therapist.

Dr. Baraka F. Kanyabuhinya grew up in Minyinya, a small village in the Kigoma region, in western Tanzania. He studied and attained a Law degree (LLB) at the University of Dar es Salaam-where he was an outstanding student and the recipient of numerous University awards. He did his Master degree (LLM) at Franklin Pierce Law Center (now University of New Hampshire), in Concord USA. Also, he worked as a legal officer while serving in an externship with Julius Chambers’ advocates in Dar es Salaam. He is an Advocate of the High Court and Subordinate Courts in Tanzania. Furthermore he is married and blessed with six issues. As a lecturer in Law, he has also served as the Head of Department of School of Law (University of Dar es Salaam) from 2015 to 2018. Apart from that Dr. Kanyabuhinya holds a PhD in Laws from the University of Dar es Salaam-Thesis titled Legal Challenges in Addressing Counterfeit Goods in Tanzania Mainland: the Right of Consumers’ to Redress. Moreover Dr. Kanyabuhinya has taught and researched widely in the following areas: Competition Law, Intellectual Property, Consumer Protection, Commercial transactions and Entities, Technology Law, Data Protection, Law of Indigenous Peoples and Family Law.

Mariana Ribeiro Santiago is a post-Doctorate in Civil Law at Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen (Germany), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Marietta Auer (M.A. LL.M. S.J.D. (Harvard)). She earned her doctorate and master’s degree in Comparative Civil Law at Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, under the guidance of Profa. Dr. Maria Helena Diniz.

Mariana is a specialist in Contract Law at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. She is a professor of the Master’s and Doctoral Program in Law. She is also a visiting Professor at the Univerdidad Católica de Colombia. She is also editor-in-chief of Revista Argumentum.

She is the author of The principle of the social function of the contract (2 ed., Curitiba: Juruá, 2008) and Vices of consent: the state of danger in contracts (Curitiba: Juruá, 2012).

She is a member of the Harmony with Nature project, an initiative of the United Nations (www.harmonywithnatureun.org). As a national and international speaker, she has given lectures in Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, Peru and Dominican Republic.

Professor Stepan Wood’s research relates to sustainability, globalization, transnational governance, voluntary environmental standards, climate change, environmental law, corporate social responsibility and social justice. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Law, Society and Sustainability at the Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia, where he also directs the Centre for Law & the Environment. His current projects relate to the rights of nature, environmental rights, homelessness, the reception of English law in colonial British Columbia, and the future of the International Organization for Standardization.

Professor Wood is founding co-chair of the Willms & Shier Environmental Law Moot, Canada’s leading environmental law moot court competition for law students. He holds an LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School and an SJD from Harvard Law School. He was a law clerk to the late Justice John Sopinka of the Supreme Court of Canada and practised law with White & Case in New York. Before joining the Allard School of Law in 2017, Professor Wood was Professor and York Research Chair in Environmental Law and Justice at Osgoode Hall Law School, where he was also Editor-in-Chief of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Coordinator of the JD/Master in Environmental Studies joint degree program, and founding co-director of Osgoode’s Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinic.

Alberto R. Salazar V., PhD is an associate Professor in the Department of Law at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada). He obtained his PhD at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (Toronto, Canada) where he was also a professor. He also taught at the Business and Society Program, York University (Toronto) and served as a MacArthur Fellow at the University of Oxford and as a CAPORDE fellow at the University of Cambridge. He specializes in corporate law including comparative corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and the new technology, consumer law, competition law, international investment and trade law, and socio-economic analysis of business law.

Lindsay Keegitah Borrows (Chippewas of Nawash First Nation) is a mother, writer, teacher and lawyer. Her work focuses on helping Aboriginal communities revitalize their laws for application in contemporary contexts. She has worked as a lawyer at the Indigenous Law Research Unit at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law, and at West Coast Environmental Law, where she worked on the RELAW (Revitalizing Indigenous Laws for Land, Air and Water) project. She has worked with many legal traditions, including Anishinaabe, Haíɫzaqv, Māori, Mi’kmaq, nuučaan̓uł, St’át’imc, Denezhu and Tsilhqot’in. She has enjoyed various fall seasons in her home community of Neyaashiinigmiing, Ontario, co-teaching Anishinaabe law camps on land to law students. She is also passionate about storytelling and language revitalization, and is the author of a creative nonfiction book entitled “Otter’s Journey through Indigenous Language and Law” (UBC Press, 2018). Lindsay received her LL.M. from the University of Alberta Faculty of Law, her J.D. from the University of Victoria Faculty of Law, and her B.A. from Dartmouth College. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law and will begin a new role as a law professor at Queen’s University in 2022.

After his training in oceanography at UQAR and obtaining his PhD in chemistry at McGill in 1983, Émilien Pelletier joined the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS-Océanologie) and developed his expertise in marine environmental chemistry and ecotoxicology. He contributed to the establishment of the Institut des sciences de la mer de Rimouski (ISMER-UQAR) in 1999. He held the Canada Research Chair in Marine Ecotoxicology at the Université du Québec à Rimouski from 2001 until his retirement in 2015. His main fields of interest are bioaccumulation and toxicity of organohalogens, marine oil spills, biodegradation of hydrocarbons in soils and sediments, and chemistry and ecotoxicity of nanomaterials and microplastics in marine species. He has participated in several scientific missions in Antarctica with French researchers in the Kerguelen Archipelago and at the French base Dumont d’Urville. He has been the scientific representative on the Saguenay-St. Lawrence Marine Park Coordinating Committee for over 20 years and has chaired meetings of this committee for the past 12 years.

Frédéric Lasserre holds a Master’s degree in Business (ESC Lyon), an MBA (York U.), a DEA in Geopolitics (U. Paris VIII) and a PhD in Geography (U. Saint-Étienne).

He worked as a consultant at the European Geopolitical Observatory (OEG, Lyon) on the political and economic transformations of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, then as an international affairs advisor at the Quebec Ministry of Industry and Commerce, then at Investissement Québec.

Since 2001, he has been a professor in the Department of Geography at Laval University (Quebec), and a researcher at the École supérieure en Études internationales (ESEI) and at the Institut Hydro-Québec en Environnement, Développement et Société (IEDS).

He has conducted numerous research projects in the field of water management and on the Arctic.

He coordinates a research team on the impacts of climate change on Arctic governance, particularly with respect to navigation, natural resources and sovereignty disputes. His publications include Arctic Passages and Seas. Géopolitique d’une région en mutation, published by Presses de l’Université du Québec in 2010.

With his book L’éveil du dragon. Les défis du développement de la Chine au XXIe siècle (Presses de l’Université du Québec), he won the 2006 Best Business Book Award.

Expert Researcher Alliance Saint-Laurent

Patrice Couture is a professor at the INRS Centre Eau Terre Environnement. He is also the Director of EcotoQ – Centre de recherche en écotoxicologie du Québec.

Professor Couture’s research work examines the effects of contaminants on aquatic organisms, both in the field and in the laboratory. For over twenty years, he has been examining the effects of these contaminants on the metabolism, bioenergetics and metabolic capacities of these organisms. Contaminants of interest to his laboratory include metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, and municipal and industrial effluents. His team focuses on freshwater fish and invertebrates. His field work is mainly conducted in mining areas, but also in the St. Lawrence River.

Expert Researcher St. Lawrence Alliance

Sébastien Sauvé is a full professor in environmental chemistry and vice-dean of research and creation in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the Université de Montréal. He has more than 200 scientific articles and book chapters to his credit on a variety of topics ranging from the study of contaminated soils, the circular economy, the analysis of emerging contaminants by mass spectrometry as well as the effects of these contaminants on health and the environment.

Professor Bernal Zamudio holds an undergraduate degree in Agrology from the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, a Master’s degree in Rural Development from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and a PhD in Development Studies and International Cooperation from the University of the Basque Country (Spain). He is an expert in holistic science for the United Nations (UN) Harmony with Nature program.

He is the coordinator of the International Cooperation Area and the Basque Country Delegation of the Biomimetic Sciences Institute (BSI) and president of the Amassunu Association for the promotion of Interculturality and Biomimicry of the University of the Basque Country. He has been a researcher in the field of biodiversity and production systems of the Amazonian Institute of Scientific Research Sinchi, Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia.

Teresa Vicente Giménez, Professor of Philosophy of Law, is Deputy Director of the Center for Cooperation and Development Studies (CECODE) at the University of Murcia. She is also Director of the Chair of Human Rights and Rights of Nature at the same university. Her teaching and research profile as a professor of philosophy of law is “Theory of Justice and Human Rights”. In this field, she has conducted specific research on the new paradigm of ecological justice and the rights of nature, social justice and social rights, children’s rights and legal feminism. In this context, she has participated in international and national congresses, conferences and seminars, has been invited to international meetings and is the author of numerous publications. Since 2019, she has been the driving force behind the Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP) of Murcia, which aims to give legal personality to the Mar Menor lagoon and its basin.

He is director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS, Seoul, South Korea) and professor of Spanish and Latin American Culture. He majored in Latin American literature and obtained his doctorate from the Complutense University of Madrid. He was visiting scholar to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was president of Korean Comparative Literature Association and Korean Association of Hispanic Studies. From 2020 to 2022, he was Vice President of HUFS. His academic research is focused on Hispanic culture, comparative literature, ecological civilization and humanities, etc. He has co-authored Two Spains (in Korean), History of Latin America (in Korean), Latin American Environmental Issues and International Cooperation (in Korean), etc. and translated Meditations on Quixote (Ortega y Gasset), Seven Voices (Rita Guibert), etc. from Spanish to Korean. His major papers (in Korean) include “A study on the Mediterranean spirit in ‘Two Spains’”, “Comparative Literature and Analogy”, “Language Ecology and Comparative Literature”, etc.

E-mail: tomas@hufs.ac.kr

Rita Mestokosho is an Innu poet who cares about the freedom of her Innu people, which means human being in Innu aimun (her mother tongue). Rita protects the territory, which she understands as a source of ancestral knowledge and healing for humanity. She considers her territory to be the bearer of the Innu culture and language. Through the practice of traditional activities, the poet is reborn anew every time.

Her work exposes her struggle for the preservation of her homeland, the rivers, her language and her Innu culture. After studying political science at the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi, she acted as advisor to the Ekuanitshit Innu Council, where she dealt with cultural and educational issues for several years. She published her first book of poetry in 1995, Eshi Uapataman Nukum / How I see life, Grandmother, which was republished in Sweden by Beijbom Books in 2009. She also contributes to several magazines, anthologies and collective works. She travels the world to spread the culture and struggles of her people. Her second book, Née de la pluie et de la terre/Born of Rain and Earth, was published by Éditions Bruno Doucey in 2014. Her most recent book, Atuku utei / Le cœur du caribou/The Heart of the Caribou, published in Montreal by Mémoire d’encrier, 2022, invokes the healing power of the heart. In it, she points out that the word freedom does not exist in Innu-aimun. The caribou is freedom.

Supporting art in all its forms, she encourages the new generation to express themselves, to heal First Nations through creation and to go beyond the borders of the invisible.

Yves Comeau is a professor in the Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal since 1992. He specialises in municipal and industrial wastewater, and in the recovery of water resources by physical, chemical and biological processes. His main areas of interest are removal and valuation of phosphorus and nitrogen nutrients, process energy optimization and process modelling. He is part of design teams for wastewater treatment plant upgrades and standardisation, as well as of committees including PEX StaRRE (Excellence Programme for Water Resources Recuperation Stations) and Réseau Environnement’s Assainissement 2.0 program.

Expert and practitioner in the initiation and implementation of nature conservation measures, in particular the protection of freshwater, natural processes and the protection and restoration of endangered habitats and species. Initiator and leader of projects in the field of water protection, including ecologically oriented flood protection, establishment and management of protected areas, as well as innovative and systemic environmental education as a basis for the Green Economy. Co-founder of the WWF Poland Foundation, where he was responsible for long term action strategy, nature conservation and environmental policy. Co-initiator of the “Time for Oder” coalition, the “Save the Rivers” coalition and the “Code for Green” programme. Currently an independent expert, founder of the Terra consulting company, environmental advisor to the Board of the WWF Poland Foundation, Social Initiatives Forum Foundation. Long-time representative of NGOs in international and national advisory bodies on water protection and nature conservation, including among others: National Board for Water Management, International Commission for the Protection of the Oder River, Monitoring Committee of the Operational Programme Infrastructure and Environment, Monitoring Committees of Regional Operational Programmes, Regional Councils for Nature Protection. From 2014 until 2018 appointed by the Minister of Environment to the State Council for Environmental Protection. Author of numerous publications on nature conservation and water protection, including: Atlas of the Oder River Floodplains, handbook “Natura 2000 and water management”, concept of “Space for the River”.

The complementarity of Anne-Marie’s highly creative and scientific mind makes her an exceptional leader. If they say that a picture is worth 1000 words, a picture is worth 1000 dreams for this passionate person. At a young age, she knew that her dreams would come true in the underwater world of biodiversity and environmental conservation. With a Master’s degree in Biodiversity, Ocean and Coastal Zone Management and a Bachelor’s degree in Marine Biology, Anne-Marie has distinguished herself by her interdisciplinary and atypical background. She has great multidisciplinary skills, particularly in communications, which allow her to work in scientific popularization and multimedia content creation. She has also been conducting her own research on plastic pollution in Canada since 2016, helping to advance the protection of the ocean and the St. Lawrence.

She began her entrepreneurial journey within the social economy in 2017, graduating from the École des entrepreneurs du Québec. Now founder and CEO of the Quebec-based organization “Organisation Bleue”, Anne-Marie advances unique projects, constantly innovates in the business and philanthropic communities in the service of the common good. Her work is creative and inspires change by touching people’s hearts.

Anette Lytzen is an eco-social worker, counsellor and certified Nature (re)connection practitioner. She has been studying the humanities and international intercultural social work in her native Denmark, where she also achieved her social work certification from the Metropolitan University College in 2004. She is certified in Response-Based Practice, a dignity-centered approach to counselling and healing. Anette has spent most of her life working for NGO’s dedicated to eliminating violence against women and to uphold the dignity and rights of humans. She has been providing counselling and advocacy for victims of human trafficking and partner violence. For years, she has been working holistically from a place of interconnectedness and combining her social work, counselling, Nature (re)connection, healing and advocacy skills in away that would benefit the wellbeing of the Earth community. Anette has initiated and created a Nature (re)connection program for shelters working with victims of partner violence in Copenhagen, Denmark. A booklet about the Nature (re)connection program has been published in 2021, and an article about her work has been featured in the Danish women’s magazine ’Woman & Society’ in 2022.

Anette has been involved in various voluntary work, including serving as a board member for different NGOs – most recently Nature’s Rights. She has been part of the Nature’s rights movement since 2016, advocating for both Nature’s rights and Nature (re)connection and is a member of United Nations Harmony with Nature Knowledge Network. She is engaged in pioneering eco-social work and believes that social work has a responsibility and play a central role in shifting our current human-centered worldviews toward ecocentric worldviews and a paradigm, where humans live in more harmonious and respectful relationships with Nature and where the rights of Nature are recognized. She has initiated a network for eco-social work in the Danish Association of Social Workers and works for the implementation of the International Federation of Social Worker’s new eco-social policy. Anette believes that when we strengthen and deepen our relationships with Nature it can bring back the feeling of being connected with the web of life – it can ignite aliveness, be transformative and spark human action. It is Anette’s purpose to serve our Earth community by working for Nature (re)connection and the health, wellbeing, dignity, justice, intrinsic value and rights of all beings.

Dr. Grayson has been an active member of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) for many years. He has served on AEA’s International Travel Awards selection committee (2018); served on the AEA Board of Directors from 2015 – 2017; served on the AEA Ends Policy Task Force (2017); served on the Annie E Casey Travel Grant selection committee (2015 – 2017); chaired the AEA International Committee from 2007 to 2009; served on the AEA Ethics Committee Professional Task Force in 2007; and, chaired the Assessment in Higher Education TIG from 2002 to 2005. Currently he is AEA’s Past President (Service Years 2020 – 2022).

Dr. Grayson’s primary expertise is in strategic planning and program/policy evaluation. One of his major activities has been to help academic and professional educators build their capacity to conceptualize and implement programs and services as well as to plan and conduct evaluations useful in improving programs and services, providing accountability for achieving strategic intent, and managing program information. He is experienced in the provision of evaluation technical assistance and training not only in higher education but also in community-based nonprofit organizations. Further, he has made many presentations and conducted numerous training seminars on evaluation policy and practice at professional conferences, service organizations, and public and private institutions.

In addition to his work in the United States, Dr. Grayson has provided technical assistance and training to professional evaluators in international settings, including the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mexico; the Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium; the International Program Evaluation Network (IPEN), Moscow, Russia; and the International Labor Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.

Dr. Grayson received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Illinois, his M.S. in Instructional Technology from Syracuse University, and his B.A. in Psychology from Rutgers University.

Adama Traoré is a doctoral student in international environmental law and international freshwater resources law at the University of Bourgogne (France). Mr. Traoré holds a master’s degree in territorial administration law and a master’s degree in business law from the Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar. Between 2012 and 2019, he held legal positions at the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and at the Port Autonome de Dakar.

Mr. Traoré’s research has focused on the legal protection of the Senegal River’s water resources, the involvement and participation of the population in the elaboration and decision-making process in the governance of the river’s resources and the biodiversity they generate. This research also attempts to test the concept of the legal personality of rivers in the Senegal River basin. Its aim is to understand and measure the level of involvement of the river’s riparian population in river management, and to identify the contribution of the latter’s traditional knowledge and give it a legal translation for the protection and preservation of water resources in a sustainable development perspective.

Adama researched and networked on the principle of participation at Laval University under the supervision of Professor Paule Halley, with a particular focus on population participation in different territorial jurisdictions (Africa, Europe, North America). He has also developed his network through his research at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) West Africa zone, on the protection of aquatic species.

Adama holds a certificate in project management and personal development.

Jorge Legoas is Assistant Professor in Indigenous Knowledges at Queen’s University. He was trained in anthropology and sustainability in Peru (PUCP), Switzerland (International Academy of the Environment), and Canada (Laval & McGill). He conducts research in the central Andes (Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia), focusing on the ontological dimensions of Indigenous people’s relation to their environments, with particular attention to how they create and implement culturally rooted epistemologies of the many human and nonhuman agents inhabiting their worlds — especially land, mountains, and the weather.

Jorge Legoas is currently the principal investigator for a SSHRC-funded project (Insight Development Grant) on Indigenous weather forecasting in Peru, Mexico, and Canada. He also works on social exclusion, the discourses of postcolonial development, and Indigenous citizenship and belonging. Prior to working in academia, he has been the director of several NGOs and a development consultant among Indigenous authorities and government actors in the Peruvian Andes.

Associated researchers

Felipe Clavijo-Ospina

Sophie Gosselin

David gé Bartoli

Daniel Turp

Victor David

Kathryn Furlong

Patricia Urteaga-Crovetto

Bianca De Marchi Moyano

Jose Antonio Martinez

Hugo Muñoz Ureña

Grant Wilson

Jeanne-Hélène Jugie

François Xavier Saluden

Catherine Iorns Magallanes

Shrishtee Bajpai

Erin O´Donnell

Jesus Alfonso Flórez

David Cordero-Heredia

Claudia Brindis

Imer B. Flores

Cecilia Inés Dominguez

Brettel Dawson

Isabel Verdaguer Foz

Dr.Baraka F. Kanyabuhinya

Mariana Ribeiro Santiago

Stepan Wood

Alberto R. Salazar V.

Lindsay Keegitah Borrows

Émilien Pelletier

Frédéric Lasserre

Patrice Couture

Sébastien Sauvé

Hernando Bernal Zamudio​

Teresa Vicente Giménez

Jeong-hwan SHIN, Ph.D.

Rita Mestokosho

Yves Comeau

Piotr Nieznański

Anne-Marie Asselin

Anette Lytzen

Thomas E. Grayson

Adama Traoré

Jorge Legoas

Hernando Bernal Zamudio