What are your research interests?
My research interests include international human rights law, international environmental law, and legal philosophy, especially legal argumentation. My current research focus is on rights of nature.
How did you become interested in your field of research?
I have been long fansinated by discovering the faultline of law, especially the boundaries of legal argumentation that is based on rationality. However, before we go there, perhaps contrary to what people would normally assume, the problem I mostly encounter in the field of international public law as well as some regional or even national legal system, is not that law is too rational or rigid, but that we discard the rules of legal reasoning too soon. It is not a secret that in most regimes law is the consequence of politics. However, law as a self-contained system that is closely linked with the societal concept of justice should be able to function independently. This is also the foundation of the rule of law. For me, what makes law independent largely lies in its promise of obeying rational argumentative and reasoning rules. This has prompted my long-term interest in studying legal argumentation and reasoning.
To understand the legal argumentation also means to study the boundaries of human reasoning capacity, this leads me to the area of non-human subjects, for example, nature and animals. What if nature has rights? How could it work in our legal system? This question is not new, but it gets a revival for our need to protect nature against the backdrop of climate change and environmental derogation. I think my previous research interests in legal argumentation, legal philosophy, environmental law, and human rights law have naturally led me to this research topic.
What research question would you above all like to find the answer to? And why is that?
My current research question regarding rights of nature is: How to make rights of nature an operatable legal concept in the European context.
Rights of nature is now a global movement and a legal reality. However, to give nature rights is far from straightforward. It requires us to think outside the anthropocentric logic and image how nature could voice its own interests in a legal system that is originally and still designed by human and for human only. Europe has been lagging in behind in the rights of nature discourse. So I find it is timely to bring this research to the forefront here and now.
What impact do you expect the Talent Track will have on your career and your research field?
Talent Track will give me the support I need for my research and career from research support, academic, and communicative aspects. From the research support aspect, I will get more direct and closer contact from the high quality research support we have at the faculty, which will further help me to strengthen my research profile including attracting research fundings. From the academic aspect, being among competitive and ambitious peers in the group will give me inspirations and stimulations for doing better research. From communicative aspects, both my research and my academic career will benefit from the the extensive network via the Talent Track.
Which impact do you expect your research to have on the surrounding society?
Since Europe is likely to be the next continent that witnesses a surge of the rights of nature movement, I hope my research will provide a timely and much-needed discussion on incorporating rights of nature in the EU legal system. Moreover, because some of the conclusions are universally applicable, they can also be used by other jurisdictions, such as the EU Member States’ national law or other countries/regions’ environmental law. Additionally, this research will provide theoretical and practical tools for Indigenous communities to engage with the policy making and legal process on environmental issues. In general, I hope this research on rights of nature will contribute to pluralistic democratization, sustainability, and justice of the society.
