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IUCN WCEL Biodiversity Law Specialist Group

IUCN COMMISSION GROUP

IUCN WCEL Biodiversity Law Specialist Group

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Overview and description

The Biodiversity Law Specialist Group was commissioned in January 2022 to spearhead the promotion of Biodiversity Law issues in the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law.

The mission of the Biodiversity Law Specialist Group is to promote scholarship, discourse, capacity-building and legal innovation in the regulation of the multiple relationships between humans and nature; and the intrinsic, relational and instrumental values of biodiversity.

Group leadership

Prof Emmanuel KASIMBAZI

Chair

Professor Emmanuel B Kasimbazi is a Professor of Law at the School of Law, Makerere University.  He is an International Environmental Lawyer and a scholar with direct experience in international ...

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Professor Emmanuel B Kasimbazi is a Professor of Law at the School of Law, Makerere University.  He is an International Environmental Lawyer and a scholar with direct experience in international environmental law and policy-making.  His research ranges from legal analysis examining the interactions between international legal regimes in to empirically-based national case studies. His expertise on environment for the last 20 years is enriched by providing expert advice to United Nations agencies, International Financial institutions especially the World Bank and Africa development Bank and Regional Economic Commissions such as EAC, IGAD and SADC.  He is the Environmental Law Expert of the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds and an active member in the IUCN as a member of the Academy on Environmental Law and a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law.

He is a Fellow of the Uganda National Academy of Sciences, the African Academy of Sciences and the World Academy of Sciences.  He is a member of the Allard Law Agenda 2063 Project University of British Columbia, Canada. He has published in different legal aspects relating to environment, water, soils, mining, climate change, oil and gas, energy, wildlife, crimes, human rights, forests and health.

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Dr Michelle LIM

Deputy Chair

Dr Michelle Lim is an Associate Professor in Law, Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University. Her interdisciplinary scholarship occurs at the intersection between biodiversity ...

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Dr Michelle Lim is an Associate Professor in Law, Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University. Her interdisciplinary scholarship occurs at the intersection between biodiversity conservation and sustainable livelihoods. Lim’s work focuses on futures-oriented biodiversity law research aimed at advancing equity and sustainability under conditions of unprecedented environmental change. She is increasingly interested in approaches which allows affective engagement with scholarship and explores ways which challenge the form of scholarship including through creative and imaginative means of expression (e.g. speculative fiction, poetry). Michelle was a fellow on the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and an author of the IPBES/IPCC joint workshop report. She was awarded the 2021 Law Society of Australia New Zealand scholarly article publication prize for the paper: "Extinction: hidden in plain sight–Can stories of 'the last' unearth environmental law's unspeakable truth?" published in the Griffith Law Review. 

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Key projects of the Biodiversity Law Specialist Group include:  

  • Mapping and championing biodiversity linkages across the WCEL;  
  • Promoting synergies and cooperation of the biodiversity-related conventions and UNCCD, UNFCCC and AEWA;  
  • Biodiversity litigation;  
  • Intra- and inter- disciplinary capacity building of biodiversity law expertise;  
  • Implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework GBF) e.g. development of legal guidance on Target 3 of the GBF in collaboration with the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) and the the Commission on Educational, Environmental and Social Policy (CEESP).”   

The Chair and deputy Chair of the Specialist Group ha”e been involved in the following events:

  1. Presentation about the SG with Ayman, Irene and Pradeep at ASEAN Environmental Law session earlier in the year;
  2. Participated as a speaker with Ayman in a panel in a webinar organized as part of the 24-hour Environmental Rule of Law Symposium on 31 May 2022 to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Montevideo Programme and 50 years of international environmental law;
  3. Presented a paper titled “Assessing the Effectiveness of the CITES Electronic Permitting System in Controlling Illegal Wildlife Trade in Uganda, during the 13th Annual Colloquium on Environmental Scholarship at Vermont Law School, USA
  4. IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law – Online webinar during the 15th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, “Novel and emerging cross-scale legal issues – How can the Global Biodiversity Framework make progress towards a world “living in harmony with nature”?” 15 December 2022.
  5. Presented on the joint IPBES-IPCC report on Biodiversity and Climate Change and its implications for law at the “Permanent Seminar on Access to Justice in Environmental Matters – Justice and Biodiversity: solutions to climate crisis” Centre for Constitutional Studies, Supreme Court of Justice, Mexico, Online, 23 November 2022.

Achievements

The following achievements have been made:

  1. Developed a database for Biodiversity Law Specialist Group IUCN contacts.
  2. Co-branding with Macquarie University Centre for Environmental Law ‘Law and Nature Dialogues’
  3. Collaborated with WCPA and CEESP on legal guidance paper on 30x30.
  4. Held a discussion at the IUCN WCEL Oslo International Environmental Law Conference with the Earth System Law Taskforce with Pradeep Singh (Oceans SG) with support of Ethics, Climate, ECG.
  5. Participated in the pre-Plastics Debrief for WCEL.
  6. Organised a virtual Side-event during CBD COP15.

Biodiversity Law related YouTube recordings:

At a glance

Official name:
IUCN WCEL Biodiversity Law Specialist Group
Associated Commissions:
World Commission on Environmental Law
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