"Natural Marine Resource Management in a Changing Climate" Workshop

The K.G. Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea and the Elisabeth Haub School of Law are pleased to announce our plans to arrange a workshop entitled “Natural Marine Resource Management in a Changing Climate.” Management of natural marine resources is crucial to economic, social and environmental development. The workshop seeks to re-examine management approaches of ocean and marine resources in light of global climate change.

Climate change is altering both the access to, and the need for, protection of natural marine resources. Because natural marine resource management approaches and practices were developed under relatively stable climatic conditions in the last century, climate change related effects and implications necessitate a re-examination of these management and goal setting approaches. Development of legal structures to respond to climate change impacts will be vital for the ability to conduct sustainable fisheries, and provide protection of natural resources. This workshop aims to address the shortcomings of the legal and policy management systems of today, and discuss alternative models and the further development of existing policies and processes. Relevant issues on which abstracts can be submitted include:

•          Current legal and regulatory tools – benefits and shortcomings
•          The complexity of the challenges to achieve sustainable fisheries/marine resource management
•          Current fishery management response to the effect of climate change
•          Distributional consequences of climate change impact on migration patterns
•          Marine management tools, including marine reserves/sanctuaries and ecosystem based management
•          Alternative regulatory tools such as private environmental governance
•          Climate change driven re-alignment of the roles and mandates of international law of the sea institutions
•          The role of native or indigenous people in the domestic climate change adaption strategies

In addition to keynote speeches by invitation from the organizers, the workshop calls for abstracts and statements of interest from lawyers, scientists, professors, and researchers with a background in law, political science and/or environmental economics. Based on these submissions the steering committee will invite speakers to present their papers at the workshop on the above topics.  Funding for airfare and lodging is available for all invited participants. 

Submission deadline:                                   1 March 2017

Notification of acceptance:                        15 March 2017

International workshop:                             13-14 June 2017

Please email your Abstracts and Statements of Interest (not exceeding 1 page in total) to the Steering Committee: Elise Johansen (elise.johansen@uit.no), Jason J. Czarnezki (czarnezki@law.pace.edu) and Alix Cotumaccio (acotumaccio@law.pace.edu).