Professor Caroline Foster Inaugural Lecture

Populations around the world today are physically and economically interdependent. They share a global economy, they share supply chains, they share the global environment, they share the earth’s resources, they share the air that we breathe, they share contagious diseases, and they share a reliance on nature’s well-being. Conceiving of implementation and compliance primarily through a dispute settlement lens has become more outdated than ever before. Dispute settlement machinery deals with often bilateral individual disputes, and it deals with them once they have crystallised and often retrospectively. A world in which international law continues to intersect ever more closely with States’ national and domestic regulatory authority, as well as to grapple with the prevention of some of the greatest threats humanity has known to date, is a world in which facilitative compliance mechanisms linked with targeted support and capacity building must surely play a central role. Professor Foster will address the practical and theoretical aspects of non-compliance arrangements in relevant international treaties.

Wednesday 2 November, 2022

6:30 pm - 7.30 pm: Lecture (Stone Lecture Theatre/801-316)

7.30 pm - 8.30 pm: Reception (Law Staff Common Room/801-409)

About the Speaker

Professor Caroline Foster's field is public international law. She has particular interests in international environmental law, and in international dispute settlement and compliance with international law. Caroline's most recent book "Global Regulatory Standards in Environmental and Health Disputes" (Oxford University Press, 2021) was nominated for the European Society of International Law Monograph Prize in 2022. Her prior work "Science, Proof and Precaution in International Courts and Tribunals" (Cambridge University Press, 2011) was cited by judges in the International Court of Justice in the Case Concerning Pulp Mills (Argentina v Uruguay) and by counsel in Whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v Japan). Current projects include an edited collection on "International Courts Versus Non-Compliance Mechanisms: Comparative Advantages of Non-Compliance Mechanisms and Other Complaints Procedures" with Professor Christina Voigt at the University of Oslo, which will be published with Cambridge University Press in 2023. Caroline is presently serving as Co-Director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law (NZCEL).