2018 - Causes and consequences of the legal architecture of climate politics (LEG-ARCH)

My study seeks to contribute to the general objective of the LEG-ARCH project: to better understand the causes and consequences of the legal architecture of climate policies - by investigating the interaction between the global governance regime for climate change, conservation initiatives funded by Norway, and national/local regulations and conservation practices in the two Amazonian
countries: Colombia and Ecuador.

In this project I am working with Professors Sigrid Eskeland (Faculty of law) and Michael Tatham
(Department of Comparative Politics), their expertise and current research in the field of environmental governance made me very enthusiastic about embarking in this project at UiB, my hope for the next two years is to better understand the architectures of climate laws and policies, to discover how the climate governance happens at different regulatory levels, what is the role of courts in it,
and if and how the combine efforts between Norway, Colombia and Ecuador have effects in the actual conservation of the rainforest as a climate oriented goal.

In 2020 I started working on the preparation of my first project article “Global warming, domestic regulation? Causes and consequences of the legal architectures of climate agreements”. Additionally, I co-wrote a book chapter with Professor Siri Gloppen (Department of Comparative Politics), published last October, entitled “The Climate Crisis: Litigation and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.” It appears in the Research Handbook on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as Human Rights (Edward Elgar Publishing 2020).

In early March 2020 I travelled to New York to attend a workshop called “Litigating the Climate Crisis:
Lessons and Strategies for Practice and Research”, this was organized by the Climate litigation Community of Practice at New York University (NYU) School of Law. If only I had known this was going to be my first close encounter with the pandemic! Luckily, I was able to finish the workshop and flight back to Norway the day before borders were closed. I am very grateful with the Vice-Dean
of the law faculty and my supervisor for their care and support during this month. As a result of this workshop, together with Professor Siri Gloppen, I co-authored a blog piece entitled “The Quest for Butterfly Climate Judging” published by OpenGlobalRights (OGR) as part of their special series. 

“Litigating the climate emergency”, and co-wrote an extended version of the same analysis, which hopefully will be soon published as a book chapter.

As the pandemic evolved and its links to deforestation became more evident, I wrote a blog piece entitled “International Earth Day 2020” in April 2020, and in May I gave an oral presentation in the online seminar “Nature gets the word in pandemic times”, organized by El Bosque University of Bogota. During the summer I participated as a lecturer and member of the course leading team of the UiB summer school “Global climate governance regime”, where I gave lectures on the theory of polycentric climate governance and was co lecturer for the case studies on Colombia, Peru and Brazil. Later in August I took part in the NorRen Summer School 2020, on “Flexible Energy Systems”, where I presented a poster and gained important insight into the field renewable energy.

Finally, my postdoctoral position at UiB allowed me in 2020 the possibility to be invited to two stimulating activities. The first was an invitation in July by the University of Western Australia to be an external examiner for the PhD thesis entitled “How to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the fossil fuel industry? A comparative analysis of Australian and Norwegian legislation and policies”. I conducted this evaluation thanks to the connection and support of dear college Esmeralda Colombo and Professor Ernst Nordtveit. This  was an  interesting and formative experience for my academic career. And by the end of the year, I was gladly surprised to be invited as jury member for the human rights documentary series “Checkpoints” of the Bergen International Festival (BIFF) 2020, to which I was invited in my capacity as researcher of the Faculty of law at UiB. Many issues related to climate governance appeared in a variety of films and documentaries, which made of this an unexpectedly source of awareness and reflection on the topics I investigate.