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Chris Hilson

Chris Hilson
  • Teaching the following LLB modules: Tort, EU Law 
  • Division Impact Lead, 2016-
  • Research Division Lead 2022-

Areas of interest

  • Law and Climate Change
  • UK and EU Environmental Law and Policy
  • Law and Social Movements
  • EU Law

Postgraduate supervision

Postgraduate research students supervised:

  • Robert Muthami (2023-) Adaptation finance in Kenya (Jointly with the Walker Institute)
  • Liam Bagshaw (2022-)  International Disasters Law
  • Vicky Bowyer (awarded 2002) LLM by Research on Environmental Impact Assessment
  • Tim Moorhead (awarded 2011) PhD, Values and Legal Order: The Institutional Role of the European Court of Justice
  • Clemens Rieder (awarded 2012) PhD, Access to Health Services in EU Law
  • Amy Jackson (awarded 2012) PhD, Critical Legal Pluralism and Veiling
  • David Yuratich (awarded 2014) PhD, Democracy and the Court of Justice
  • Congcong Xu (awarded 2017) PhD, Law and Climate Geoengineering
  • Behnam Balalimood (awarded 2018) PhD, EU Long-term Resident's Directive
  • Selam Abebe (awarded 2022) Climate Justice and International Climate Compliance
  • Juliana Velez-Echeverri (2019-) Climate-Induced Displacement and Resettlement and Human Rights in Colombia

Background

Professor Chris Hilson joined the School of Law of the University of Reading in 1996 from the Environmental Services Association, where he acted for a short time as a policy advisor to the waste industry. Prior to that he was a lecturer in law at the University of Leeds from 1993-1996.

His PhD from the University of Sheffield involved a study of pollution control in its regulatory context. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Environmental Law from 2008-2012 and has acted as an adviser on environmental law to NGOs including ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth.

His current research interests are in the areas of UK, EU and comparative environmental law and policy, climate law, and law and social movements.

Academic qualifications

BA (Cambridge), MA (Cantab), PhD (Sheffield).

Professional bodies/affiliations

  • Member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of Environmental Law (OUP) 2012-
  • Editor, Journal of Environmental Law (2007-2012)
  • Legal Adviser to ClientEarth
  • Member of the editorial board of the Review of European Administrative Law (Europa Law Publishing) (2007-2019)
  • Book reviews editor, Journal of Environmental Law (2002-2007)
  • Book reviews editor, Environmental Law Review (2001-2002)
  • Involved in completed research project "Strategies of Civic Inclusion in Pan-European Civil Society" as part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) research programme "One Europe or Several? The Dynamics of Change Across Europe"
  • Expert witness for Friends of the Earth Scotland, Letham Moss CBM PLI, Scotland, 28-31 March 2014

Selected Online Full Text Publications - Scroll down to see RECENT publications

Recent conferences and seminars

  • Invited (with Jorge Guira) to present on climate finance regulation and opportunities for space data, Climate Risk Disclosure Task Group, Space4Climate, hosted by National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), Reading, 9 March 2021 (Zoom)
  • Invited, webinar presenter, "Thinking Through Net Zero", as part of webinar: The pathway to Net Zero: How to set credible targets, run by Achill Management for the Legal Sustainability Alliance, 23 Feb 2021 (Zoom)
  • Invited, webinar discussant, Legal Perspectives to Raising Ambition and Implementing Nigeria's NDCs, The Centre or Climate Change and Development, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike Ikwo, in partnership with World Resources Institute (WRI) Washington DC, Thursday, 11th February, 2021 (Zoom)
  • Invited, "Covid and Climate Change: Risk, Age and Law", Journal of Environmental Law annual workshop/conference (Zoom), 25 November 2020
  • Invited and took part in workshop, "Populism, Expertise, and Public Policy", Rothermere American Institute (Oxford), 4 May 2020 (via Zoom)
  • Invited, "Populism, air pollution and the Indian Supreme Court", public workshop, "Poisoned Air: Are Courts the Antidote?", Transnational Law Institute, King's College London, 6 March 2020
  • Invited, "Climate Law Targets: Governance, Temporality and Administrative Law", Environmental Law Discussion Group, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford, 9 May 2019
  • Invited, "Climate Change Litigation and the Narrative Turn: Law, Courts and Populism", workshop, "Climate Change Litigation: Current Challenges and Future Potentials", 29 April, 2019, UCLouvain, Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
  • Invited participant, Symposium "Law, Time and Futures", 15-17 November 2018, IASS Potsdam, Germany
  • "Rights Framing and Fracking in the UK: The Owl of Minerva?", workshop, "Fracking Europe. Multidisciplinary perspectives on a checkered technology", 8-9 November 2018, Environmental Science Center (ESC), University of Augsburg, Germany.
  • Invited participant, Workshop on Trump, Brexit, and Environmental Law, University of Notre Dame (USA) in England, London, 17 April 2018.
  • Co-organiser of the conference (and panel Chair), "Strategic Litigation in Practice", Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Mansfield College, Oxford, 14 Feb 2018.
  • "Framing Time in Climate Change Litigation", SLS conference, Dublin, 5 September 2017.
  • "Framing Time in Climate Change Litigation", workshop, Regulating Climate Change: Governance and Legal Mobilization, IISL, Onati, Spain, 27-28 July 2017.
  • "Framing Time in Climate Change Litigation", workshop on Climate Change Litigation and Legal Mobilization, UCL Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy, 21 July 2017.
  • "The Movement Against Nuclear Power in the 1970s: Protest, Litigation and Opportunity Theory", panel, Explaining Variation in European Legal Mobilization, 24th International Conference of Europeanists (CES), Glasgow, 13 July 2017.
  • "Legal Mobilization and Climate Displacement", paper presented at workshop, "Climate displacement and resettlement: what scope for claims-making 'from below'?", University of Reading, 21 February 2017.
  • Paper on Brexit and the Environment at the British Academy event, "Brexit and the Environment: A Roundtable", 30th January 2017.
  • Keynote presentation on Brexit and the Environment at a workshop "The Future of European Policy in the European Union", 19-20 January 2017, Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg.

Research Impact

Read here about Professor Chris Hilson's research on climate change law and policy.

Podcasts

Publications

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