Faculty welcomes NZLF Visiting Scholar Ben Boer

21 March 2011

Te Piringa - Faculty of Law is delighted and honoured to welcome Emeritus Professor in Environmental Law Ben Boer from the University of Sydney. Professor Boer is the 2011 New Zealand Law Foundation’s Distinguished Visiting Fellow.

Te Piringa - Faculty of Law will host Professor Boer while in New Zealand. While at the University of Waikato, Ben will be giving a guest lecture, a staff seminar and a public lecture – details of which will be advertised shortly. He will also be taking time to visit the law faculties of Auckland University, AUT, Victoria University Wellington and Otago.

Ben Boer was appointed as Emeritus Professor in Environmental Law in late 2008 at the University of Sydney. Between 2006 and 2008, he was the international Co-Director of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Academy of Environmental Law and Visiting Professor based at the University of Ottawa, while continuing to teach in the Master of Environmental Law at the University of Sydney. With his departure from Canada, he was appointed as an honorary Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa. In his new role at the University of Sydney, he continues to teach in various units of study in the Master’s program at the University of Sydney. In 2010 he was appointed as a Visiting Professor in the Research Institute of Environmental Law, Wuhan University, People's Republic of China. Later in 2010, Ben took up a three month Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence, where he taught a course on Advanced Human Rights Law and the Environment.

Formerly, Ben was Professor in Environmental Law, University of Sydney (Personal Chair, 1997 - 2008) and the Corrs Chambers Westgarth Professor of Environmental Law, University of Sydney (1992-1996). Prior to that, at Macquarie University, he was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor, School of Law (1979-1991) and Lecturer in Graduate School of the Environment(1979-1991), and Tutor and Lecturer, Department of Legal Studies, La Trobe University (1974-1979).

Together with his Sydney colleagues and environmental lawyers at the Australian National University and the University of Adelaide, Ben founded the Australian Centre for Environmental Law between the three universities in 1992. At the University of Sydney, this body is now called the Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law. He was a founder of the Australasian Law Teaching Workshop which commenced its programmes in 1989.

Ben has published widely in the area of environmental and natural resources law and policy, including International Environmental Law in the Asia Pacific (with Ross Ramsay and Donald Rothwell), and Heritage Law in Australia (with Graeme Wiffen, Oxford 2006). He contributed to Francioni, F. (Ed.) The World Heritage Convention; A Commentary (Oxford 2008). His latest work, of which he was the main editor, is Environmental Law and Sustainability after Rio (with Jamie Benidickson, Antonio Benjamin and Karen Morrow, eds. Edward Elgar 2011. He is currently the head of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Law Specialist Group. In this connection, he completed two extensive case studies on protected areas law for Australia and New South Wales.

Ben has served as a consultant to various intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations in the following countries: China, Federated States of Micronesia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, New Caledonia, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Vietnam and Samoa, as well as conducting research for various departments of the Australian Federal Government.

For further information see his University of Sydney staff profile