Ewan McGaughey

Ewan McGaughey is a Professor of Law at King’s College, London, who specialises in economic, social and environmental rights, with a focus on enterprises in natural resources, energy, transport, housing, and agriculture: the chief sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Ewan is a research associate at the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge, and has held visiting positions in Berkeley, Sydney, Fukuoka and Paris School of Economics. He holds degrees from the London School of Economics,  Humboldt University of Berlin, and King’s College, London. His doctoral thesis concerned institutional investment, pension funds, and the rights of the real investors in capital to participate in corporate governance. He is closely involved with the labour movement, and movements for a just cessation of fossil fuels, to protect a living planet. 

Background

Ewan has been closely involved with climate litigation. He co-organised the first case to sue corporate directors personally over their failures regarding climate change, and the UK’s largest crowdfunded court case to date. This was to make the UK’s largest pension, the Universities Superannuation Scheme, divest fossil fuels in line with its members’ wishes and their best financial interests, and to reverse a series of pension cuts. While succeeding on reversing pension cuts out of court, the fossil fuel argument was rejected on procedural grounds in the Court of Appeal. The case did, however, establish a new precedent of a ‘beneficiary derivative claim’ which may be used to sue pension directors for breach of duty, potentially in relation to climate. He is regularly involved in advisory and consulting work against polluters, their financiers, and advisers.

Research interests

Ewan is interested in stopping climate damage as fast as technology allows, the universal right ‘to share in scientific advancement and its benefits’, and why law often lags behind technology. Specifically he is focused on:

• oil and gas, and transition into renewable network companies, or climate liability,
• electricity supply and grids, adopting renewable energy and storage rapidly,
• clean transport on roads, railways and in shipping, and reducing marginal costs including for consumers,
• building and housing regulations, including insulation, clean heating and renewable generation,
• agriculture and forestry laws, rewilding and restorative land management,
• the duties of corporate directors, asset managers and pensions for clean energy and to end fossil finance.