2025 Christ's Kennel Climate and Sustainability Seminar: Nature and rights

2025 Christ’s Kennel Climate and Sustainability Seminar: Nature and rights – what legal frameworks and practices do we need to protect all life on Earth?

20 February 2025 (5.30pm - 6.45pm followed by a reception)

Venue: Yusuf Hamied Theatre, Christ's College, Cambridge (map)

The Christ's Kennel Climate and Sustainability Seminar is held in collaboration with the Centre for Science and Policy. The 2025 seminar will be a panel discussion with the following speakers:

• Chair: Lord Simon Mcdonald, Master, Christ's College

• Laura Clarke, Chief Executive Officer, ClientEarth

• Helen Dancer, Associate Professor in Law and Anthropology, University of Sussex

• Emma Lees, Professor of Environment and Property Law, University of Cambridge

*Registration for this event has now closed*

Increasing attention on market-based approaches to protecting nature requires taking the role of law and regulation seriously. We know successful conservation and restoration of nature doesn’t work if it rides roughshod over human rights. And with the UN recognising the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, there is a great opportunity to bring questions of human rights into dialogue with conservation. In this session we will explore these questions, alongside important new legal approaches grounded in earth jurisprudence and the rights of nature, which are deeply engaged with indigenous perspectives and philosophies. We hope to bring together approaches to deepen understanding of how law can ensure thriving futures for people and the Earth.

Climate Seminar Convenors

Rob Doubleday (Executive Director of the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge and Bye-Fellow of Christ’s College)

Miles Kempton (Charles Darwin and Galápagos Islands Fellow, Christ’s College, University of Cambridge)

Simon McDonald (Lord McDonald of Salford, Master of Christ’s College)

Theresa Marteau (Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit, University of Cambridge and Fellow of Christ’s College)