The U.S. and Australia face growing challenges to climate action amid renewed fossil fuel investment, weakened environmental protections, and shifting political priorities. The University of Pennsylvania and the University of Melbourne invite you to a joint seminar to explore and compare legal and civic strategies for defending the human right to a healthy environment across continents.

Speakers:

Amy Laura Cahn, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Lee Godden, Melbourne Law School

James R. May, Washburn University

Rebekkah Marker-Towler, Melbourne Law School

Moderator: Hannah Morrice, University of Melbourne

Amy Laura Cahn, Esq. (she/they) is a Climate and Environmental Justice Fellow at the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General. A community-based movement lawyer with over twenty-five years as an organizer and facilitator, Amy Laura has long collaborated with grassroots groups on environmental, climate, land, and food justice to support self-determination and shifting power. Amy Laura is also an adjunct lecturer at Tufts University and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where she teaches climate policy and just transition law and lawyering.

Amy Laura most recently served as Legal Director for Taproot Earth, facilitating the launch of the Just Transition Lawyering Network. Amy Laura has also served as a Visiting Professor and Director of the Environmental Justice Clinic at Vermont Law and Graduate School where she led a collaborative effort to launch the Environmental Justice State by State database of U.S. environmental justice laws and policies. Before VLGS, Amy Laura led the environmental justice and community lawyering practices at the Conservation Law Foundation and Philadelphia’s Public Interest Law Center, beginning as a Skadden Fellow and director of the Garden Justice Legal Initiative, the nation’s first urban agriculture law clinic. Amy Laura clerked for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division. Amy Laura serves on the Editorial Board for the journal Environmental Justice and was recently published in the journal Poverty and Race (A battle for the soul of Title VI in Cancer Alley, Fall 2024).

Lee Godden (PhD, MA, B.Leg S, BA Hons) is the Director, Melbourne Centre for Law and the Environment. She researches in environmental resources law, natural resources law, water law, and indigenous people's land and resources rights. Recent publications include Environmental Law: Scientific Policy and Regulatory Dimensions 2010 (with J. Peel), Comparative Perspectives on Communal Lands and Individual Ownership: Sustainable Futures 2010 (with M. Tehan) and Australian Climate Law in Global Context 2013 (with A. Zahar and J. Peel).

Professor Godden's research interests include environmental law, natural resources law (especially water) property law and indigenous peoples' land rights. The impact of her work extends beyond Australia with comparative research on environmental law and sustainability, property law and resource trading regimes, water law resources and Indigenous land rights issues, in countries as diverse as Canada, New Zealand, UK, South Africa, and the Pacific.

Engagement with the theoretical and the grounded aspects of law is a hallmark of her scholarship distinguished by an interdisciplinary approach. She maintains a focus on legal theory, drawing on her background in law and geography. Her work has appeared in leading International journals, as well as leading Australian law journals. Professor Godden has been awarded ARC Discovery Project and Linkage Project funding, as well as grants from bodies, such as the AIATSIS.

Professor Godden teaches environmental law, water law and climate law (Melbourne Law Masters program). Previously, she has taught property law, legal theory, and Master of Environment subjects. She regularly supervises research higher degree students.

She has a longstanding record in community knowledge transfer; a recipient with other project members of a 2007 Vice Chancellor's knowledge transfer award. Her contribution to environmental conservation and social justice has been recognized by invited membership of leading international and national environmental, and natural resource organizations. Her work continues with engagement in public interest issues such as the impact of climate change on environmental law and water law and economic development for indigenous communities.

James R. May, Esq. is Richard S. Righter Distinguished Professor of Law at Washburn University and founder of the Global Environmental Rights Institute at Widener University Delaware Law School, where he serves as Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus. Professor May is recipient of the American Bar Association’s Award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy for his work in environmental law, constitutional law, climate law, human rights, dignity law, and environmental justice. 

May is also a human rights litigator who has worked on the constitutional law dimensions of numerous environmental and climate cases, including as amicus author on behalf of law professors and scholars in the cases of Juliana v. U.S., American Electric Power v. Connecticut, Village of Kivalina v. U.S., Held v. Montana, Comer v. Murphy Oil, and Massachusetts v. the U.S. EPA. 

May has published several books involving climate change and climate rights, including Climate Rights: Cases and Contexts, Principles of Constitutional Environmental Law,  Environmental Human Rights and the Anthropocene, Encyclopedia of Human Rights and the Environment, Global Environmental Constitutionalism, and Modern Environmental Law: Concepts, Cases and Contexts. May has also published more than 100 law review articles and book chapters, including many regarding the intersection of constitutional law and climate change. 

May is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the American College of Environmental Lawyers, and Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society and is recognized by LawDragon as one of the world’s leading environmental lawyers. 

Bek Markey-Towler is a PhD candidate at the Melbourne Law School and a Research Fellow with Melbourne Climate Futures at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests are in climate litigation and sustainable finance, with her PhD examining the regulation of mortgage lending in a changing climate. She is a co-host and producer of the Climate Talks podcast and manages the database on climate litigation in Australia. Prior to working at the University, Bek was the Executive Associate to a judge on the Federal Court of Australia.