On February 12, 2024, the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) released a landmark report on the State of the World’s Migratory Species as part of CMS COP 14. This first ever global biodiversity report focused on migratory species comes to many concerning conclusions, including that nearly half of CMS listed migratory species are showing population declines (although some are improving). More disturbingly, 97% of CMS-listed fish are under threat of extinction. Overexploitation and habitat loss combined with degradation and fragmentation are are the gre ..read more

On November 23, 2023, MELAW and the College of Sustainability hosted the first annual Meinhard Doelle Legacy Lecture, featuring former colleagues and collaborators of Meinhard including myself, Bill Lahey (now President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of King’s College), and Lisa Mitchell (Executive Director and Senior Lawyer, East Coast Environmental Law). Moderated by CoS faculty Steve Mannell who worked closely with Meinhard at CoS, our roundtable discussion was centred around reflections on the past, present and future of environmental law, in light of our individual experiences work ..read more

This past weekend Dalhousie University commemorated National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Treaty Day in Nova Scotia, and the launch of Mi’kmaq History Month. For readers and contributors to this blog, it is also just over a year ago that our treasured colleague and blog founder Meinhard Doelle was tragically killed while cycling. Since then, many initiatives have remembered and celebrated Meinhard’s contributions (for a quick summary of some, see p4 of the Hearsay). Among his contributions was the publication of the casebook Environmental Law: Cases and Materials, together with co-author ..read more

“Everything is Complex, But Everything has a Solution”: Remembering Meinhard Doelle By: Martin Olszynski Associate Professor, University of Calgary, Faculty of Law It is the weekend before the Supreme Court of Canada’s hearing in Re: Impact Assessment Act and I am sitting at my dining room table, writing (and re-writing) my prepared remarks for the Court and thinking about my extraordinary colleague and dear friend Meinhard Doelle. For those who didn’t know him, Meinhard was a giant in the field of Canadian environmental law and policy, and in impact assessment law in particular. He was also ..read more

On March 9, 2023, the Marine and Environmental Law Institute hosted Marcos A Orellana, the Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights (SR Toxics), as the 14th Annual Douglas M Johnston Lecture . The talk was entitled: ‘A Human Rights-based Approach to the New Treaty on Plastic Pollution’ and a recording is available here. This lecture could not be timelier. A March 2022 United Nations Environment Assembly resolution created an intergovernmental negotiating committee tasked with developing an internationally binding instrument to tackle plastic pollution using a full lifecycle approach. The ..read more

This blog was written by Arlene Kwasniak, Professor Emerita of Law and Senior Research Fellow with the Canadian Institute of Resources Law, University of Calgary, in memory of Meinhard Doelle.  December 20, 2022 [posted February 9, 2023] I first met Meinhard at a Canadian Environmental Network Environmental Planning and Assessment Caucus (RCEN EPA Caucus) meeting decades ago. It was his first I recall- I was a Caucus “regular” by then. From that first meeting it was clear to me that Meinhard was extraordinary – including as a knowledgeable and committed environmentalist, legal a ..read more

Responsible Business Conduct and Impact Assessment Law: Origins of a Project and Reflections written by Prof Sara Seck  Environmental lawyers and environmental law professors spend a lot of time thinking about how to prevent environmental harms and the key role that environmental assessment legislation can play to that end. My late colleague Meinhard Doelle, founder of this blog, was a preeminent example of this. His expertise in environmental assessment (EA) law in all its diverse forms – including its potential to tackle challenges such as climate change – is well known and involved col ..read more

The Just Transition Impact Assessment Framework: A Doelle Lens  Written by: Adebayo Majekolagbe, PhD – Fellow, the African Sovereign Debt Justice Network, and the Marine and Environmental Law Institute, Dalhousie University  (This blog is dedicated to the memory of Meinhard Doelle who co-supervised my PhD thesis on just transition and impact assessment.) “Be careful not to present sustainability transition and climate transition as the same thing.” – Meinhard Doelle (Feedback on PhD thesis on Just Transition Impact Assessment) Meinhard Doelle’s body of work on international clim ..read more

The just completed COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland, took place over the first two weeks of November, 2021, delayed by a year because of COVID, and still very much under the shadows of the pandemic.  Health concerns, unequal vaccine access, and travel restrictions exacerbated the pre-existing “have and have not” reality for climate negotiators and observers from the global south.   Expectations for COP 26 were high.  The phrase “our last best chance” to avoid the worst impacts of climate change was a common way to frame the significance of COP 26.  Among the key issues on t ..read more

By Professors Sara Seck and Meinhard Doelle, and Killam Post Doctoral Fellow, Lisa Benjamin. On June 25th, 2019, the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, released a report on climate change and poverty.  This much-anticipated report offers an opportunity to focus on an often neglected aspect of climate change, the disproportionate, devastating impact of unmitigated climate change on those living in poverty. While heatwaves in Europe have attracted attention, it is the existing climate-induced impacts on vulnerable communities in the Global South which are ..read more