Menu

Louis Kotzé

Photo by Maximilian Glas
PROGRAM CHAIRS/

Louis
Kotzé


Faculty of Law, North-West University, South Africa

BIO

Louis is Research Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, North-West University in South Africa. He is also Senior Professorial Fellow in Earth System Law at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom, and currently serves as the co-chair of the Earth System Governance Network’s Scientific Steering Committee. His research focuses on human rights, socio-ecological justice and environmental constitutionalism; law and the Anthropocene; and Earth system law. He has over 200 publications on these topics. Louis is an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellow, and in 2018 he was awarded a European Commission Horizon 2020 Marie Curie Fellowship to lead a project on Global Ecological Custodianship-Innovative International Environmental Law for the Anthropocene at the University of Lincoln. In 2022 he served as the Klaus Töpfer Sustainability Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam. Next to his academic commitments, he is assistant editor of the journal Earth System Governance; a Senior Fellow of the Earth System Governance Network; and a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Commission on Environmental Law.

Louis joined THE NEW INSTITUTE in the Academic Year 2023/24 as the Chair in the program “Governing the Planetary Commons: a Focus on the Amazon”.

PUBLICATIONS

The planetary commons: A new paradigm for safeguarding Earth-regulating systems in the Anthropocene
in PNAS, 2024


Research Handbook on Law, Governance and Planetary Boundaries
2021 (with Duncan French)


Earth System Law: The Juridical Dimensions of Earth System Governance
in: Earth System Governance, 2019 (with Rakhyun E. Kim)


The Anthropocene, Earth System Vulnerability and Socio-ecological Injustice in an Age of Human Rights
in: Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 2019


Rethinking Global Environmental Law and Governance in the Anthropocene
in: Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law, 2014


Global Environmental Constitutionalism in the Anthropocene, 2016

LATEST

| stay informed | stay connected

NEWSLETTER

What is happening at THE NEW INSTITUTE? Step inside by following our institutional newsletter, which ties together the work of our fellows and programs, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Newsletter

We use cookies to measure how often our site is visited and how it is used. You can withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future. For further information, please refer to our privacy policy.