Law in Water and Environmental Governance

Research group

Our research team examines water and marine environmental law from a river basin perspective. Our research is multi-level, covering international, EU and Finnish law. The background of our group is in the theory of complex systems and adaptive governance. Our research is methodologically diverse, combining doctrinal study of law, empirical legal research (especially qualitative research) and analytical legal theory. Our group consists of researchers in environmental law and environmental policy, and its activities include monthly meetings on water themes, and an annual International Conference on Water Law and Governance. We have published our research in top international publications such as Nature Urban Sustainability and PNAS.

Organization

UEF Law School, Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies

This research group is founded on a passion to explore, how environmental law and governance can transform human activity to a more sustainable path, helping us reach ambitious environmental objectives concerning the ecological status of waters. The core substantive themes of the group are water and environmental law, sustainable use of renewable natural resources, biodiversity and climate change adaptation. Cross-cutting themes include legal regulatory strategies, law in adaptive, collaborative and transformative governance, legal regulation of cumulative impacts, law and mitigation hierarchy, and science in legislative drafting and legal decision-making.

The research group collaborates with other UEF research groups, other Finnish universities, research institutes, and with leading researchers from other universities abroad. Currently, the scholars involved with the group are participating in and heading many research projects dealing with aquatic resources, including BlueAdapt funded by the Strategic Research Council of Finland and SusHydro funded by the Academy of Finland.

Homepage of the group