Intl Recognition for Environmental Law School

Media release
13 November 2009

International Recognition for Environmental Law Scholar

Professor Klaus Bosselmann is the first winner of the Senior Scholarship Prize awarded by the IUCN Academy for Environmental Law.

He is Director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law (NZCEL) at The University of Auckland.

The prize was inaugurated this year to acknowledge outstanding scholarship which is original, has intellectual influence and international significance, enhances collaboration among scholars from different institutions and regions, and advances the Academy’s aims.

The Academy, the only global body of environmental law scholarship, with a membership of more than 100 universities and 140 law professors, inaugurated the prize this year. It undertakes academic research into environmental law and ascertains how law can best advance a just society that values and conserves the environment.

The prize was presented at the Academy’s Seventh Annual Colloquium in Wuhan, China on 5 November. Associate Professor David Grinlinton, Acting Director of NZCEL, accepted it on behalf of Professor Bosselmann who is on research and study leave at the University of Malta.

In a truly serendipitous result, the other major award — the Junior Scholarship Prize — was won by Dr Christian Voigt from the University of Oslo. Dr Voigt was a former LLM student of Professor Bosselmann and other members of the NZCEL at the Faculty of Law at Auckland.

"More than anything, this is a reflection on NZCEL's international standing,” says Klaus Bosselmann. “My colleagues are renowned for their commitment and sustainability approach to environmental law and governance. They are part of this recognition."

“This is a great honour for Klaus and we congratulate him on his achievement,” said the Dean of Law at Auckland, Professor Paul Rishworth. “Sustainability is plainly the issue of our age, and it is great that the NZ Centre for Environmental Law is making a contribution that is recognised internationally.”

ENDS

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