Professor Anna Grear

Biography

Core outreach activities

Founder and past Director of the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment: the largest network of international scholars working at the nexus of human rights and the environment; Patrons include Vandana Shiva and Jonathan Porritt; membership list includes many stellar international scholars in the field. The GNHRE hosts annual symposia, and is a sister project to the well-received Journal of Human Rights and the Environment. 

Founder and Editor in Chief of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment. The journal was listed in 2019 as being in the top 11% of all law journals internationally (SCOPUS CiteCount Index).

Other selected outreach activities

• Co-Organiser: Permanent People's Tribunal International Hearing on Human Rights, Climate Change and Fracking (2018)
• Co-Organiser: Deep Dive Workshops on the Commons: France (2016); Bristol, United Kingdom (2018)
• Co-founder, Incredible Edible Bristol: an urban food democracy movement (2014)
• Co-organiser, GNHRE International Symposium, Spain, 2014
• Co-organiser, GNHRE International Symposium, Costa Rica, 2013.
• Co-organiser, GNHRE International Symposium, Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Spain, 2012.
• Co-organiser: The Irigaray International Seminar, Bristol, June 2011 (co-hosting Professor Luce Irigaray).
• Co-organiser: ‘Building Economic Recovery on the Backs of the Poor and Vulnerable: America’s Return to Social Darwinism’, Professor Martha Albertson Fineman, Bristol Watershed – part of the Bristol Festival of Ideas. 2011.
• Organiser: ‘Vulnerability Revisited’ – a workshop with Professor Martha Albertson Fineman, June 2011, Bristol UWE.
• Co-Organiser: ‘An Audience with Irigarary’, Professor Luce Irigaray, February 2011, Bristol Watershed – part of the Bristol Festival of Ideas.
• Organiser, ‘When Natural Differences Substitute for Constructed Oppositions: A New World Culture’, Professor Luce Irigaray, Bristol, February 2011.
• Organiser: One day roundtable on ‘Vulnerability’ with Professor Martha Albertson Fineman, Bristol UWE (June 2010).
• Organiser: ‘The Construction of Law’s Person, Gender and Human Rights’ – A Roundtable Discussion with Professor Ngaire Naffine (University of Adelaide), Bristol UWE (July).

Honours and awards

• Shortlisted for IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Senior Scholarship Award, 2018
• Nominated for King's Fellowship Visiting Professorship, Uppsala University, Sweden, 2018
• Appointed as an Associate Fellow of the New Economy Law Centre, Vermont Law School, USA, 2015
• Appointed to United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network: Thematic Group Three: Challenges of Social Inclusion, Gender, Inequalities, and Human Rights, 2014
• Appointed as Dahrendorf Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics, 2013
• Nominated for IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Scholarship Prize, 2012
• Awarded International Seminar by International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Onati, Spain (competitive application process), 2011
• Awarded Visiting Scholarship, St John’s College, Oxford, UK (competitive application process) (6 weeks), 2007 

Professional memberships

• Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Waikato, New Zealand
• Invited Professor, Westminster Centre for Law and Theory, London, United Kingdom
• Global Affiliate to the Vulnerability and Human Condition Collaboration, Emory University, USA
• Member of the Dahrendorf Network—Dahrendorf Forum (Berlin, Germany)
• Associate Fellow of the New Economy Law Centre, Vermont Law School, USA
• Member of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network

Academic positions

• 2015-Present: Professor of Law and Theory, Cardiff Law School, UK and Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Waikato, New Zealand
• 2013-2015: Reader in Law, Cardiff Law School, UK and Adjunct Associate Professor of Law, University of Waikato, New Zealand
• 2006-2012: Senior Lecturer in Law, Bristol Law School, Bristol UWE
• 2002-2006: Senior Lecturer in Law, Oxford Brookes University (Field Chair/Director: LLB Single Honours Field)
• 2000-2002: Lecturer in Law, Oxford Brooks University, Oxford UK.

Speaking engagements

Date	Title	Event
November 2020	'Ecocide in a Pandemic'	Kings College, London.
October 2019	Human Rights in the Anthropocene: 'Of' and 'For'.	Human Rights in the Anthropocene, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law,  Lund University, Sweden.
May 2016	Invisible Cities, Toxic Utopias, Law and the Theft of the Future	Distinguished Professorial Address, UWE, Bristol
April 2016	Human Rights and the Environment: Of Convergence, Dissonance and Anthropocene Dilemmas	Sustainable Places Seminar Series, Sustainable Places Institute
May 2015	Human Rights Futures: How Should Human Rights Change?	'The Future of Human Rights', University of Utrecht
January 2015	Deconstructing Anthropocene Humanity	'The Anna Grear Reading Group': A PostGraduate Event at the University of Birmingham, University of Birmingham Law School
October 2014	The DNA of the legal system	'Connecting the Dots' TEDxBonn, German Federal Foreign Office, Bonn, Germany
June 2014	"Flesh of my Flesh": Deconstructing the "Anthropos" of "the Anthropocene"	Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment Symposium 2014, IUCN Colloquium, Tarragona, Spain
May 2014	Facing up to the Reality of Global: The Case of the Productivist Food System	The Self-Sufficient City: Genius or Folly? (Bristol Festival of Ideas), Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol
April 2014	Climate injustice - Re-imagining the ontology, epistemology and ethics of 'legal hearing'	SLSA Annual Conference 2014, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen
November 2013	Provocations: Critical Reflections on the Patterns of Climate Injustice	Dahrendorf Symposium 2013: 'Changing the European Debate: Focus on Climate Change'. Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz, Berlin.
October 2013	Corporate Legal Subjectivity: Juridical Form and the Necropolitical	Westminster Centre for Law and Theory Seminar, Westminster Centre for Law and Theory, University of Westminster, UK.
October 2013	Law's Entities: Complexity, Plasticity and Injustice	Westminster Centre for Law and Theory Doctoral Masterclass, Westminster Centre for Law and Theory, University of Westminster, UK.
July 2013	Towards a New Horizon: In Search of a New Socio-Juridical Imaginary	'Human Rights and the Environment: Re-imagining their Relationship II', San Jose, Costa Rica (in absentia).
June 2013	Unmasking the Giants: Corporate Juridical Form and the Necropolitical	'Ecological Integrity, Globalization and Radical Social Change: From the UN, to the Earth Charter; from the World Social Forum to the Rights of Mother Earth and Beyond', San Jose, Costa Rica (in absentia).
September 2012	Re-imagining the Relationship between Human Rights and the Environment: Law’s Anthropocentrism Examined in the Search for Alternative Philosophical Foundations	Sociology Seminar Series, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
June 2012	Onati International Seminar: Human Rights and the Environment: In Search of a New Relationship	Funded International Seminar. Chair of the event. Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Onati, Spain.
November 2011	Framing the Project: Critical Reflections on the Dysfunctional Family of the UHDR	'Being In-Human': The Critical Theory and Law of Human Rights'. Birkbeck, University of London.
September 2011	Mind the Gap	Public Lecture, Faculty of Law, University of Waikato, New Zealand.
September 2011	Should Law’s Persons be Re-imagined?	Lunchbox Seminar Series, Socio-legal Studies Centre, University of Otago, New Zealand.
September 2011	Law, Vulnerability and Persons	Staff Research Seminar, Faculty of Law, University of Waikato, New Zealand.
June 2011	Mind the Gap: Reflections on Legal Subjectivity in the Age of Globalisation	‘Human Rights, the Corporation and the Environment’ - part of the 'Re-Engineering the Corporation' ESRC funded series, Queen's University, Belfast.
May 2011	Critical and Legal Reasoning and Feminist Judgment	Feminist Judgments: Next Steps, London School of Economics, UK.
April 2011	Redirecting Human Rights	Critical Theory Group Seminar, Oxford Brookes University, UK.
June 2010	Human Rights and the Environment: Theoretical Perspectives': Discussant Paper	'Human Rights and the Environment'. Launch Conference of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment and the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment. Bristol Law School, UWE, UK.
June 2010	‘Vulnerability’ - Organiser and Discussant	'Vulnerability - a Special Roundtable Conversation with Martha Albertson Fineman'. Bristol Law School, UWE, UK.
May 2010	Law, Vulnerability and Persons	Staff Seminar Series, Faculty of Law, University of York, UK.
April 2010	Law, Vulnerability and Human Rights	Staff Seminar Series, University of Bristol, UK.
March 2010	Porter v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis	‘Feminist Legal Judgments’ Project Panel' at Socio-Legal Studies Association Conference, Bristol Law School, UWE
March 2010	Law, Vulnerability and Legal Subjectivity	Staff Seminar Series. Faculty of Law, University of Exeter, UK.
October 2008	‘Human Rights without Freedom’ - Discussant	‘Human Rights without Freedom’, Vanderbilt University, USA.
October 2008	Ontological Vulnerability and the Gender of the Human Rights Universal	Staff Seminar, University of Kent, UK.
September 2008	Feminist Judgments: Moving Forward: The Art of Delivering a Judgment - Invited participant.	‘Feminist Judgments: Moving Forward: The Art of Delivering a Judgment’ , University of Westminster, UK.
May 2008	Theory and Method - Discussant paper	‘Between Resistance and Compliance? Feminist Perspectives on International Law in an Era of Anxiety and Terror’, International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Onati, Spain.
April 2008	‘Feminist Judgments: From Theory to Practice – the First Steps’ - Invited as a theoretical discussant	Feminist Judgments: The First Steps, University of Durham, UK.
March 2008	Ontological Vulnerability: Reconceptualising Universalism in International Human Rights Law	Socio-legal Studies Association Annual Conference, University of Manchester, UK
February 2008	Disembodiment, Embodiment and the Gender of the Human Rights Universal	AHRC Centre for Gender, Sexuality and Law Seminar, University of Keele.
July 2007	The Construction of Law’s Person, Gender and Human Rights	‘The Construction of Law’s Person, Gender and Human Rights’ - Special Roundtable with Ngaire Naffine. Organiser and Convenor. Bristol Law School UWE.
June 2007	Human Rights and Academic Freedom	University Annual Conference, University of the West of England, Bristol.
April 2007	Embodiment, Disembodiment and Human Rights	Socio-legal Studies Association Annual Conference, University of Kent, UK.
March 2007	All We Refugees	'All we Refugees' - Network for Global Ethics and Human Rights event. Chair of Session. Pieren Centre, Bristol.
November 2005	Human Rights - Human Bodies? Some Reflections on Corporate Human Rights Distortion, the Legal Subject, Embodiment and Human Rights Theory	Interdisciplinary Seminar Series: Rights, Justice, Violence and War, University of Sussex, UK

Committees and reviewing

• Co-Editor in Chief, Journal of Human Rights and the Environment
• Series Editor for Routledge: Law, Justice and Ecology
• Series Editor for Elgar Publishing: Critical Reflections on Human Rights and the Environment
• Editorial Board Member for Counterpress (Law and Critical Theory).
• Journal reviewer for, among others, Global Ethics; Feminist Legal Studies; The Feminist Review; Human Rights Review; Journal of Environmental Law; Legal Studies
• Editorial Board Member, Asia Pacific Journal of Environmental Law

Publications

• Date
• Type
• Selected

Teaching

Teaching experience and responsibilities at Cardiff:

LLM LEVEL: Human Rights and Global Justice.

UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL: Legal Foundations; Environmental Law and Justice.

Teaching experience prior to Cardiff:

LLM LEVEL: Theoretical and Institutional Foundations of Human Rights; Intersectionalities: Race, Gender, Sexuality and Law; Legal Theory.

UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL: Civil Liberties; Critical and Legal Reasoning; Legal Process; Legal Method; Jurisprudence; Land Law; International Human Rights Law; Constitutional Law; Administrative Law.

My research has always grappled, in one way or another, with the issues central to how law co-constructs and mediates the world, how law 'populates' the world with persons, systems, strategies and mechanisms, and how these patterns of law's co-construction are related to law's injustices.

This key interest in law's 'world-making' has led me to wide-ranging engagement with a range of questions. My work tends to be 'meta' rather than 'micro' in focus and is transdisciplinary in orientation. I am interested in some of the deeper questions and patterns underlying a range of interlinked phenomena—and this interest leads me into 'conversation' with a wide range of contributors and perspectives. My work, in that sense, is never 'narrowly legal'.

In 2015, I was awarded 100,000 USD from the Open Society Foundation, along with Burns Weston and David Bollier for a future-facing project on 'commons governance' as a complexity-responsive alternative to the state-market pairing. Such initiatives, which are springing up all over the world, fit well with my interest in New Materialist thought, and suggest various alternative ways of organising human common lives, positioning human social structures within a core commitment to partnership with non-human beings and systems.

Re-Imagine the Future

Supervision

• Critical Legal Theory
• Posthumanist and New Materialist Legal Theory
• Non-Human Rights 
• Human Rights: Theory; Discourse
• Environmental In/Justice

Current supervision

Past projects