Legal Atlas and Amir Sokolowski

Pleased to host Amir Sokolowski from The Legal Atlas Project to Lancaster for a talk entitled The ecosystem approach to environmental law—understanding law in context and the Legal Atlas Platform

Monday, 7th November - 12:00 – 1:00pm

Training Rooms 1 & 2, Gordon Manley Building LEC 3, Lancaster Environment Centre

Environmental law conditions many areas of life, and is of immediate interest to scholars far outside the legal field. However, identifying, accessing and understanding even a single law is often complex, particularly when working internationally. This challenge is further compounded when we seek to understand laws within particular social contexts and legal systems. Issues such as climate change, conservation and wildlife trade require understanding and implementation not into a single law or system, but across many systems. Science-informed policies require the clear transplant of ideas into law, which is rarely straightforward. They can run wildly across different aspect of law, different hierarchies within legislation and through several fields (criminal commercial, contract and constitutional). Moreover, questions of relevant authority, types of incentive, access to information and/or the courts all determine the impact of law. This talk will present the Legal Atlas Platform, a new resource that can help scientists from across disciplines to identify, access and understand environmental legislation globally. The talk explores how to engage with this digital platform, not as a list of laws, but rather within broader context. It views ‘Law’ as an organic creation that must be catalogued by topic, and not field. Having done so, law can be used for change and wielded outside its own ‘guild’.

Amir Sokolowski is the senior legal analytics officer at Legal Atlas, with degrees in history, law and comparative environmental law. Amir develops methods for and conducts data-assisted comparative research into legislation for climate change, fisheries management and protected areas.