CCJHR interdisciplinary Seminar: Dr Elena Kavanagh (09/12/25)
The Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights is delighted to announce an interdisciplinary seminar featuring Dr Elena Kavanagh (UCC School of Law), Dr Jesse Peterson (UCC Radical Humantities Laboratory), and Julián Eduardo Suárez Bohórquez (UCC School of Law, PhD Candidate). The title of the seminar is "Entangled Rights: Indigenous Sovereignty, Rights of Nature, and More-Than-Human Justice".
The lunchtime seminar will take place on Tuesday 9th December at 2pm-3pm in the Room AL_G.33 in the School of Law at Aras na Laoi, UCC.
Registration: Entangled Rights: Indigenous Sovereignty, Rights of Nature, and More-Than-Human Justice – Fill out form
This interdisciplinary seminar forms part of the lead-up to the 2026 launch of the Indigenous Rights Cluster at the CCJHR, University College Cork.
The event brings together three UCC scholars whose research addresses new and emerging approaches to law and justice in the context of climate breakdown and ecological harm:
• Elena Kavanagh, UCC School of Law — Indigenous peoples’ rights, self-determination, and Arctic governance
• Julián Eduardo Suárez Bohórquez, UCC School of Law (PhD candidate) — Rights of Nature, environmental sustainability, and legal innovation
• Jesse Peterson, UCC Radical Humanities Laboratory — More-than-human justice, environmental change, and the intersections of science, technology, and culture
The seminar will explore how Indigenous epistemologies, particularly those grounded in reciprocal responsibilities between humans and the wider living world, can help to reframe contemporary human rights discourse. It will also examine how Rights of Nature initiatives, intergenerational justice, and multispecies approaches reveal the limits of Western legal doctrines while offering pathways toward more ecologically grounded forms of jurisprudence.
For more on this story contact:
Dr. Luke Noonan at luke.noonan@ucc.ie