Jacqueline Peel

Professor of Environmental and Climate Law, University of Melbourne
Professor Jacqueline Peel is a leading, internationally-recognised expert in the field of environmental and climate change law. Her scholarship on these topics encompasses international, transnational and national dimensions, as well as interdisciplinary aspects of the law/science relationship in the environmental field and risk regulation.

Professor Peel is the author or co-author of several books and numerous articles on these topics. Her books on these topics include The Role of International Environmental Law in Disaster Risk Reduction (ed with D. Fisher, Brill, 2016); Climate Change Litigation: Regulatory Pathways to Cleaner Energy (with H. Osofsky, 2015, CUP); Australian Climate Law in a Global Context (CUP, Melbourne, 2013 with A. Zahar and L. Godden); Principles of International Environmental Law (3rd ed, CUP, UK, 2012, and 4th edn, 2018, with P. Sands ); Environmental Law: Scientific, Policy and Regulatory Dimensions (OUP, 2010, with L Godden and 2nd ed with L. Godden and J. McDonald); Science and Risk Regulation in International Law (CUP, UK, 2010) and The Precautionary Principle in Practice (Federation Press, 2005).

Professor Peel has been an active contributor to public policy formulation on climate change and environmental issues at the national and international level through her work on bodies such as the International Law Association's Committee on Legal Principles Relating to Climate Change, the International Bar Association's Working Group on a Model Statute for Climate Change Relief and the Australian Panel of Experts in Environmental Law. From 2019-2021, Professor Peel will serve as a Lead Author in WGIII of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change for its 6th Assessment Report. In addition to these roles, Professor Peel has served on the Membership Committee of the American Society of International Law and as co-chair of its International Environmental Law interest group (2014-2017), and is currently a Council Member and Secretary of the Australia New Zealand Society of International Law. She is a member of the Editorial Board for Climate Law, the European Journal of Risk Regulation and the Environmental and Planning Law Journal, and an editor of Transnational Environmental Law.

Professor Peel's research has attracted competitive funding from various organisations, including the Australian Research Council (ARC), VCCCAR and the United States Studies Centre. In the field of climate change law, Professor Peel has held several ARC grants: to examine the regulatory framework for responding to climate change in Australia (2009-2011 with L. Godden and R. Keenan); on the role of climate change litigation in transitioning to a clean energy future (2012-2017, with H. Osofsky); and on legal mechanisms for promoting corporate energy transition (2016-2019, with H. Osofsky and B. McDonnell). Professor Peel has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Berkeley Law School's Centre for Law, Energy and Environment (UC Berkeley, California) and also at Stanford Water in the West, Stanford University (2012-2015). Together with Dean Osofsky, Professor Peel provides evaluation and research consultancy services to the UK-based Children's Investment Fund Foundation for their grants on strategic climate change litigation.

Professor Peel has received several prestigious awards such as a Fulbright Scholarship, NYU Hauser Scholarship and the Morrison Prize 2018 for her award-winning article with Dean Hari Osofsky (Penn State) on "Energy Partisanship". She is regularly invited to take part in expert panels at conferences and to deliver keynote addresses, such as the 2016 Mahla Pearlman Oration in Environmental Law. Professor Peel takes an active interest in fostering early career researchers in her field, including her PhD students. In 2017 she co-founded (with Dean Osofsky) the Women's Energy and Climate Law Network with the aim of fostering greater involvement of women in areas of energy and climate law-related scholarship and practice.

Professor Peel holds the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Laws (Hon I) from the University of Queensland, a Master of Laws from New York University where she was a Fulbright scholar, and a PhD from the University of Melbourne. In 2003-2004, Professor Peel returned to NYU Law School as a Hauser Research Scholar and Emile Noel Fellow. Prior to her appointment at Melbourne, Jacqueline completed an internship at the United Nations International Law Commission, working with Professor James Crawford on the UN International Law Commission's State Responsibility articles. From 1997 to 1999 she practised environmental and planning law at the national law firm of Allens Arthur Robinson.