Geneva, 26 February 2026. 

UCC School of Law's Professor Áine Ryall has been re-elected unanimously as Chair of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee.

With a view to providing postgraduate researchers working in the broad area of Environmental and Natural Resources Law with a friendly and informal platform at which to meet, network and present their research to their peers, UCC School of Law will host the 16th annual Postgraduate Research Symposium on Environmental Law on Wednesday 22nd April 2026.

The 22nd edition of the annual Law and the Environment Conference at University College Cork (UCC) will focus on the question of whether environmental law has reached a level of maturity where codification of this extensive corpus of principles, rules and standards is now required in order to ensure its internal coherence. 

The Sustainability Institute and the Centre for Law and the Environment in UCC hosted an event yesterday on the theme "Reflection on COP30: Implications for Ireland’s Presidency of the EU in 2026".

This year’s conference will take place on Thursday 1st May, and will focus on Reframing Environmental Law for Accountability, Circularity, Sustainability and Justice.

On 24^th February 2025, Niamh Guiry, PhD Scholar and Assistant Lecturer at the UCC School of Law, took part in a high-level panel discussion on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Dublin City.

This year’s conference will take place on Thursday 1st May, and will consider the theme 'Reframing Environmental Law for Accountability, Circularity, Sustainability and Justice'

With a view to providing postgraduate researchers working in the broad area of Environmental Law with a friendly and informal platform to meet, network and present their research to their peers, UCC School of Law will host the 15th annual Postgraduate Research Symposium on Environmental Law on Wednesday 30th April 2025.

The 21st edition of the annual Law and the Environment Conference at University College Cork (UCC) will focus on the subtle, yet fundamental changes currently taking place (or urgently required) in the form, function and fabric of modern environmental law. 

The new series features interviews with UCC Centre for Law and the Environment faculty members, focusing on their work, upcoming events, ongoing research and projects being undertaken at the centre.

Please click the following link to view the programme for our upcoming PG Symposium, which will be held on Wednesday 24th April 

This year’s conference will take place on Thursday 25th April, and will consider the theme ‘Rights, Remedies and Restoration in Environmental and Natural Resources Law’ 

This hybrid workshop will be held on Thursday, 14th March, Dora Allman Room, The Hub from 10am-3pm.

 The UCD Law Review Editorial Board launched Volume 23 of the journal in January 2024. 

The Centre for Law and the Environment (CLE) at the School of Law, UCC has recently submitted an amicus curiae brief to the ongoing Advisory Opinion proceedings on climate change (SOC 1/2023) before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR)

The 20th annual Law and the Environment Conference at University College Cork will be held on Thursday 25th April 2024 and will focus on 'Rights, Remedies and Restoration in Environmental and Natural Resources Law'. Proposals for Papers/Presentations should be forwarded before the 31st January 2024 deadline. 

On 16^th November 2023, Niamh Guiry, PhD Researcher at the School of Law, presented at the annual Environmental Protection Agency and Irish Centre for European Law (ICEL) Environmental Law Enforcement Conference at Dublin Castle.

Please click the following link to view the programme for our upcoming PG Symposium, which will be held on Wednesday 19th April. 

The funding has been made available through the 2022 Irish Research Council (IRC) New Foundations awards. Today’s announcement represents funding in eight projects which will deliver impactful research in areas of excellence which align to the UCC Futures framework.

On 25 January 2023 UCC FLAC Society organised an event on the theme Environmental Law and Sustainability.  

The panel of speakers included Professor Áine Ryall, School of Law UCC; Councillor Dan Boyle, Green Party; and Harold Kingston, dairy farmer & Munster Regional Chair Irish Farmers’ Association.  

UCC School of Law will host the 13^th annual Postgraduate Research Symposium on Environmental Law on Wednesday 19^th April 2023. The Symposium will immediately precede the 19^th annual Law and the Environment Conference to be held on Thursday 20^th April 2023

The 19^th annual Law and the Environment Conference at University College Cork (UCC) will  be held on 20th April 2023 and will focus on environmental regulatory activity as a species of administrative governance. The organisers welcome proposals for papers / presentations reflecting upon the increasingly diverse range of administrative processes, operating at a variety of levels of administrative governance, which contribute towards creation of the complex mix of governance frameworks which constitutes modern environmental regulation

On 16 October 2022, Professor Áine Ryall, Centre for Law & the Environment, delivered an invited contribution to the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss.

Alison Hardiman and Rhoda Jennings (PhD Researchers at the School of Law) presented at the 9th European Environmental Law Forum (EELF) Annual Conference hosted in Tarragona by the University Rovira I Virgili on 21-23 September 2022.The conference theme was Rethinking environmental law: Connectivity, Intersections, and Conflicts in the Global Environmental Crisis.

As an ERI-affiliated Research Centre the achievements and outputs of the Centre for Law & the Environment are featured in the ERI’s Annual Reports.  

The School of Law will host the 12th annual Postgraduate Research Symposium on Environmental Law on Wednesday 4th May 2022. It is intended to offer c.12 postgraduate students the opportunity to present on any topic arising from their ongoing research activities. 

This year’s conference will take place on Thursday 5th May, and will consider the theme 'Environmental Rights: From Discourse to Legal Action’

UCC School of Law's Professor Áine Ryall has been unaimously elected Chair of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee in Geneva on 16 December 2021.

The Centre for Law & the Environment hosted a webinar on Enforcing European Union Environmental Law on 13 October 2021. 

The Centre for Law and the Environment will host a webinar on the theme Enforcing European Union Environmental Law on Wednesday, 13 October 2021 from 3-5.30pm.

Rhoda Jennings and Alison Hardiman (PhD Candidates at the School of Law) and Professor Áine Ryall participated at the 8^th European Environmental Law Forum (EELF) Annual Conference hosted online by Bournemouth University from 8-10 September 2021.

The Centre delivers a wide range of high-impact, frontier research activity.  Applied research, with a ‘real world’ focus is the hallmark of the Centre’s work to date.

Two PhD candidates from the UCC School of Law recently presented at the 31^st Irish Environmental Researchers Colloquium (Environ 2021).

Sarah Ryan Enright, a PhD candidate at the School of Law and MaREI, the SFI Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine, recently published an article in the Journal Frontiers in Marine Science entitled “The Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor (CMAR): The Emergence of a Voluntary Regional Cooperation Mechanism for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biodiversity Within a Fragmented Regional Ocean Governance Landscape”, as part of the research topic Challenges and Opportunities in Regional Governance of Ocean Ecosystems.

The Centre for Law & the Environment at UCC has been awarded funding under the Department of Foreign Affairs Communicating Europe Initiative 2021. 

On 30 March 2021, UCC Law Society and UCC Environmental Society joined forces to host an online event focusing on the theme: How to use the Law to support climate action. 

The Centre for Law & the Environment hosted a webinar on Enforcing European Union Environmental Law on 8 December 2020. 

Convened by Professor Áine Ryall, with funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs Communicating Europe Initiative, the webinar attracted over 160 participants. 

The Centre for Law and the Environment will host a webinar on the theme Enforcing European Union Environmental Law on Tuesday, 8 December 2020 from 3-5.30pm.

Dr Áine Ryall, Co-Director of the Centre for Law & the Environment, convened an expert session at the 2020 PILnet Global Forum on 20 October 2020.

Online Digital Badge programme for first year, undergraduate UCC students

The Centre for Law & the Environment is engaged in a research project on the theme Teaching Environmental Law for Policy Innovation and Impact (2020-2021). 

Dr Áine Ryall, Co-Director of the Centre for Law & the Environment at UCC, appeared before the Committee on Climate Action on 15 October 2020. 

A report published in May 2020 on ‘The Regulation of Smoky Fuels in Ireland: Assessing Options for Reform’ prepared for the Asthma Society of Ireland (ASI) by the UCC Environmental Law Clinic has featured prominently in news media coverage of the Government’s announcement of an extension of the current ban on smoky (bituminous) coal to a further 13 towns. 

On Friday, 18 October 2019, the Centre for Law and the Environment at UCC hosted a major conference on the theme Enforcing European Union Environmental Law.

The Centre for Law and the Environment is delighted to host an open event at UCC during Community Week 2019.

The Centre for Law and the Environment at UCC is hosting a conference on Friday, 18 October 2019 on the theme Enforcing European Union Environmental Law.  The event, which runs from 2pm-6.30pm, is open to the public and is free of charge. 

The Centre for Law and the Environment at UCC will host a conference on Friday, 18 October 2019 on the theme Enforcing European Union Environmental Law. 

The seminar explored Recent Developments in European Union Environmental Law.

The Centre for Law and the Environment will host a seminar on the theme Recent Developments in European Union Environmental Law on the evening of Friday, 28 June 2019.

The Seminar will take place on Friday, 28 June 2019, from 5-7.30pm.

The Centre for Law and Environment, along with SHEP Earth Aware are delighted to host a talk by Professor Peadar Kirby on Friday February 22nd, 2019.

Prof Abdesselam Salmi, who is currently visiting the Centre for Law and the Environment at the School of Law will deliver a talk about his current research in the field of Environmental Law on Tuesday next, 29 January 2019.  

On Tuesday, 18 December 2018, the Centre for Law & the Environment will host a seminar on the theme “Nature Conservation in the Anthropocene”.  The seminar will run from 4.15-6pm in G.27 O’Rahilly Building, UCC.  All are welcome.

Áine Ryall (School of Law, UCC and Vice-Chair of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee) presented a paper at a conference organised by the Irish Centre for European Law in Dublin on 22 November 2018 to mark the 20^th anniversary of the adoption of the Aarhus Convention (Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters).

In light of the newly released IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, and in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, the UCC Centre for Law and the Environment hosted a guest lecture by Doug Ruley on ‘It's a Meaningful Life: Law in the Age of Climate Change’.

The Centre for Law and Environment, along with SHEP Earth Aware, will host a public lecture entitled Ireland's Climate Policy Failures: Time for the Courts in Boole 1 Lecture Theatre at 7.30pm on Friday, November 9th.

On Friday 5th of October, the UCC Centre for Law and the Environment hosted a guest lecture by Elizabeth Kirk who is a Professor of International Environmental Law at Nottingham Trent University.

The UCC Centre for Law and the Environment is delighted to invite you to a guest lecture by Fulbright Scholar Doug Ruley.

Professor Patrick Parenteau, Vermont Law School, is Visiting Fulbright Scholar at the School of Law, UCC in 2018/19.

Dr Áine Ryall, School of Law and Co-Director UCC Centre for Law and the Environment, has been awarded a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship at the European University Institute (EUI), Florence.

 UCC School of Law invites applications for fully-funded PhD scholarships (EU fees plus €16,000 stipend, tenable for up to four years) or LLM (by Research) scholarships (EU fees plus €16,000 stipend, tenable for one year). 

Dr Áine Ryall, School of Law and Co-Director UCC Centre for Law and the Environment, delivered an invited keynote address at the launch of the Planning, Environmental and Local Government Bar Association (PELGBA) on 10 July 2018.  The inaugural PELGBA event was hosted by the Bar of Ireland at the Distillery Building in Dublin. 

On 14 July 2018, the Environmental Law Implementation Group (ELIG) and the Irish Environmental Network (IEN) hosted a day-long seminar at King’s Inns, Dublin to mark the 20^th anniversary of the adoption of the Aarhus Convention.

UCC School of Law is currently accepting applications for postgraduate research scholarships.

Dr Sean Whittaker, School of Law and UCC Centre for Law and the Environment, was conferred with the PhD in Law on 15 June 2018.  

Dr Áine Ryall attended the meeting of the Avosetta Group of Experts on EU Environmental Law from 25 to 26 May 2018.  This year’s Avosetta meeting was hosted by Vienna University of Economics and Business.

The UCC Centre for Law and the Environment was launched formally on 26 April 2018 by Vice-Admiral Mark Mellet DSM, Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces and Adjunct Professor at the School of Law, UCC.

The symposium will see an array of international speakers present their research on contemporary environmental issues. 

Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates to undertake research leading to the award of PhD and addressing an appropriate aspect of The Evolving Legal Framework for Marine Biodiversity in Ireland.

On 10 April 2018, Áine Ryall presented a paper to members of the Irish Environmental Law Association at Trinity College, Dublin.  The paper examined ‘Review of Compliance under the Aarhus Convention’.

On 27 March 2018, Dr Áine Ryall presented a paper at #InfoLaw2018. Organised by FP Logue Solicitors, the conference examined the most recent developments in information law, policy and practice.

Courtrooms around the world are fast becoming the new front line for climate action. 

On the island of Ireland, some 650 pieces of EU legislation act as the principal drivers of environmental protection.

The School of Law was delighted to collaborate with UCC Law Society to host a careers event on 24 February 2025 with Oonagh Buckley, Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications.