About
Marie Petersmann is an Assistant Professor of Law at LSE Law School, and Director of the Sustainability Law & Policy Clinic (SLPC) of LSE's Global School of Sustainability (GSoS). Her work focuses on international law, ecology, and critical theory. She holds a PhD from the European University Institute (Florence) and an LLM from the Graduate Institute (Geneva). Marie is the author of When Environmental Protection and Human Rights Collide: The Politics of Conflict Management by Regional Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2022). She sits on the Editorial Board of the Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law (RECIEL), and is series editor at Amsterdam University Press. Prior to the LSE, Marie was Senior Researcher at Tilburg Law School (2020-2023), Resident Fellow at the Istituto Svizzero in Rome (2022-2023), Postdoctoral Fellow at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development in Utrecht (2019-2020), and Teaching Associate at the Strathclyde Center for Environmental Law and Governance in Glasgow (2018-2019).
Research
Research Interests
Marie’s research focuses on reparative legal action and climate justice in the Anthropocene. In 2022, she was awarded a ‘Veni’ grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for her project Anthropocene Legalities: Reconfiguring Legal Relations within More-than-human Worlds(2022-2025). Her work draws on legal theory, ecological philosophy, feminist posthumanism and critical Black studies to explore the potential and limitations of rights-based approaches in environmental litigations.
- Legal theory
- Ecological philosophy
- Feminist posthumanism
- Critical Black studies
Publications
Teaching
Engagement and impact
Public Engagement
- Co-convenor, with Dr. Dimitri Van Den Meerssche, of the Underworlds: Sites and Struggles of Global Dis/Ordering conferenceand podcast series(2023-2025), with episodes on Oceans(with Surabhi Ranganathan and Renisa Mawani), Oil/Coal(with On Barak and Lys Kulamadayil), Breath(with Daniela Gandorfer and Jean-Thomas Tremblay), Debt(with Vasuki Nesiah and Kojo Koram), Commons(with Isabel Feichtner and Elsa Noterman), Frontiers(with Christine Schwöbel-Patel and Cait Storr), Waste(with Heather Davis and Michael Hennessy Picard), Hope(with Claire Colebrook and David Chandler), Wild/Feral(with Irus Braverman and Floris De Witter), and Vessels(with Rinaldo Walcott and Itamar Mann).
- Co-convenor, with Julia Dehm, Kathleen Birrell, and Afshin Akhtar-Khavari, of the Law and the Inhuman workshopand Critical Legal Thinking symposium(2024)
- Speaker at the Paul Mellon Centre (Yale University) event on ‘Extractivism/Activism: Art, Activism and Ecological Extraction’ (2024), session 3 on ‘Litigation/Climate Crimes’ (with Radha D’Souza, Jonas Staal and Marie Smith, recorded here).
- Ora d’Oro Exhibitions, Re–member the silence,sound & visual installation, Istituto Svizzero, Roma (24 June 2023)
- Live interview, SOUND TALES Ciao Roma, Radio Couleur 3 (24 May 2023, 2:37:17)
- Curator of the transdisciplinary event ‘Becoming Common – Ecological Resistance, Refusal, Reparation’, Istituto Svizzero, Roma (17-18 May 2023)
- Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, TBA21-Academy Talkon ‘Mediterranean Ecologies and the Anthropocene’, Palazzo Butera, Palermo (5 October 2022)
- EIEL Webinar, ‘When Environmental Protection and Human Rights Collide’ (26 January 2023)
- 4thRudolf Bernhardt Keynote Lecture, ‘Towards More-than-human Rights?’, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International Law, Heidelberg (28 October 2022)
- Sovereign Nature Initiative (SNI) Eco-Talk,‘Sensing Practices & Representations of More-than-human-Worlds’ (16 December 2021)
- ‘Theory Hacks’ workshop series on ‘(Re)Configuring More-than-human Normativities: Strategic Litigation, Collective Actions, and Sensing Technologies’, De Ceuvel, Amsterdam, (co-organized with Andrea Leiter and Daniela Gandorfer) (May 2022)
- Film Festival Movies That Matter, commentator of the documentary ‘Duty of Care: The Climate Trials’ (15 April 2022)
- 2020 ‘"Staying with the trouble": Sensing climate change in the Anthropocene, Völkerrechtsblog
- 2020 ‘Sensing Covid-19 and Climate Change’ Tilburg Environmental Law Blog
- 2017 ‘The latest World Bank Environmental and Social Framework: Progress on Fair and Equitable Benefit-Sharing?’ (Parts I, II and III) BeneLex Blog
- Les Matins de France Culture, ‘Jeunesse Socialiste Suisse: Initiative 1/12 sur l’équité salariale’, Coup de fil en Suisse par Léo Kloeckner(July 2013)
External Activities
- Affiliated Research Fellow, Tilburg Law School (Netherlands): Member of the ‘Constitutionalizing in the Anthropocene’ (CitA) project and PhD Co-Supervisor of Rens Claerhoudt (2022-2026).
- Associate Editor, Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law (RECIEL) (2019-present)
- Member of the ‘Council for the Living’, The Zoönomic Institute & Foundation (2023-present) (2023-present)
- Research Fellow, Earth System Governance Project (2019-present)
- Project Member, Black Anthropocene Working Group (2020-present)
- Member of the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment (GNHRE) (2019-present)
- Member of the World Commission on Environmental Law (IUCN WCEL) (2018-present)
- Resident Fellowat the Istituto Svizzero in Rome (2022-2023)
- Co-founder of the Theory Hacks Collective(with Dr. Andrea Leiter and Dr. Daniela Gandorfer, in collaboration with the Logische Phantasie Lab) (2022-present)
- Co-founder of the ‘Coloniality, Decoloniality and Extractive Anthropocenes’ and ‘Anthropocene Times’ networks, funded by the British Academy