About Us – Earth System Law

Louis Kotzé is Research Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, North-West University, South Africa, and Senior Professorial Fellow in Earth System Law at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom.

His research focuses on global environmental law, with a specific emphasis on its intersecting formal (governance) and substantive aspects at national, regional, international and transnational levels. His research broadly encompasses three interrelated themes that he approaches from a transnational perspective: human rights, socio-ecological justice and environmental constitutionalism; law and the Anthropocene; and Earth system law.

He has over 140 publications on these themes (see https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_awP9R0AAAAJ&hl=en). Recent books include: Research Handbook on Human Rights and the Environment (with Anna Grear-Edward Elgar, 2015); Global Environmental Constitutionalism in the Anthropocene (Hart, 2016); Environmental Law and Governance for the Anthropocene (Hart, 2017); Sustainable Development Goals: Law, Theory and Implementation (with Duncan French-Edward Elgar, 2018).

In 2016 he obtained a second PhD at Tilburg University, Netherlands, and has been awarded a European Commission Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Fellowship to lead a research project during 2018-2019 at the University of Lincoln titled: Global Ecological Custodianship-Innovative International Environmental Law for the Anthropocene (GLEC-LAW). He is currently assistant editor of Earth System Governance (Elsevier).
Duncan French is a leading academic on international environmental law and the international legal implications of sustainable development. He has written extensively in these areas, as well as writing generally on both broader questions of public international law (eg. treaty interpretation), international economic and investment law, and international dispute settlement. He has secondary research interests in international law of the sea and Antarctica. As a key figure in the global debate on sustainable development, he has been co-rapporteur of the International Law Association Committee on the International Law on Sustainable Development for ten years (2002-2012). He was also Chairman of the ILA Study Group on International Law and Due Diligence (2012-2016).