About
Marie Petersmann is an Assistant Professor of Law at LSE Law School, where she leads the Sustainability Law Clinic as part of the 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
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
No results found
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’OroExhibitions, 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