Welcome to GreenLaw!

Firstly, an enormous thank you to Tate Strauss, our eternally patient and talented designer who did our logo and this website. As can be seen, he has a great eye for design. He is so easy to work with and took on board all our feedback with good grace and incredible turnaround time. GreenLaw is very thankful for his expertise and patience. You can check out more of his work here: https://designedbytate.com/.

GreenLaw is approaching its first birthday. Annika first had the idea for a young person-led legal organisation in July 2019 and pitched it to me in August. The first-ever GreenLaw team meeting was held in September. It is both galvanizing and daunting to think about how far we have come since that time.

GreenLaw would like to thank our academic supervisors at the ANU who have supported us enthusiastically from the beginning, including Associate Professor Vivien Holmes, Associate Professor Matthew Zagor, Dr Anthony Hopkins, Dr Peter Burnett, Dr Ron Levy, Dr Don Rothwell, and Dr Jonathan Liljeblad. We appreciate their dedication and assistance and look forward to continuing to work with them in the future.

GreenLaw’s Journey So Far!

In the ten months GreenLaw has been operating, we have achieved some incredible things. We have made two submissions to government inquiries, had our research published in a peer-reviewed journal, been interviewed in the media,^[1] and been selected to speak at international conferences.

Our first foray into environmental justice was actually criminal law. In collaboration with ANU legal academic advisors and other legal organisations, GreenLaw developed a kit informing environmental protestors of their rights as they advocate for our environment. It covers a range of legal areas and includes general suggestions to help organisers prepare for actions and minimise risk. We also released a 2-page summary sheet to be handed out during actions. Both of these will shortly be available on the GreenLaw website.

GreenLaw also undertook an empirical review of cases brought under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. You can read our report in the Document Library. We found that allegations of spurious litigation to hinder development to be unfounded, as an average of 3.2 cases per year are brought under the EPBC Act. Using this research, we made a submission to the EPBC independent statutory review, which is shortly to make its interim report. Our research was also accepted for publication in the Environment and Planning Law Journal.

One of the tenets of GreenLaw is our wellbeing programme, GreenTea, which aims to help GreenLaw members cope with the difficult emotions that arise through our work. This program was designed in collaboration with Christie Wilson, a psychotherapist specialising in ecological grief. We hope that this will make us more effective advocates and change the culture amongst legal practitioners around burnout and self-care.

We are currently working with Farmers for Climate Action to help them develop a legal framework for a National Agricultural Strategy, and with the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition to assess climate change commitments made by key members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

We look forward to continuing to build the GreenLaw movement, supporting the next generation of lawyers in tackling the climate crisis.

^[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/19/claims-major-projects-are-being-delayed-by-environmental-lawfare-dismissed-in-new-research.