Home » Candidates » Catherine IORNS for position: Regional Councillor – Oceania

Candidate info

Particular qualifications to be a Regional Councillor:
Catherine Iorns is an Environmental Law Professor in Wellington, New Zealand. Her environmental law work is discussed below, under "Experience in fields of concern to IUCN". Catherine has IUCN experience as a participating member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) and the New Zealand IUCN Committee, for which she has organised conferences on conservation issues. She has previous governance experience for environmental and other NGOS, with 7 years on the Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand Board and Chair of its Human Rights Committee. The Amnesty International work included making campaign, financial and strategic decisions, participating in International Council Meetings, and working on the international statute and on position papers. In the Pacific, she has worked on issues at the invitation of local and indigenous NGOs (discussed below). She has also been an organiser of three Pacific Climate Change conferences and two environmental law training workshops for small states’ lawyers. Her other international networking experience includes ten years as a member (and contributing author) of the International Law Association Committee on the Implementation of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Catherine is also an adviser to the New Zealand Council of Legal Education, on legal education and bar admission matters. She developed the Conflict of Interest policy for the Council (among others). Her University Dean has approved her work as an Oceania Regional Councillor, so she can allocate the required time to it.

Link to qualifications details

Experience in fields of concern to IUCN:

Catherine’s primary field of teaching and research is environmental law and justice. She has published and presented internationally on a wide range of domestic and international environmental law and justice topics, winning several prizes for her work, including the 2018 IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Senior Scholar prize. In relation to conservation, she teaches biodiversity and conservation law, as well as climate change law and policy, and animal rights and welfare. Her research and writing address specific conservation and biodiversity topics such as on biodiversity offsets, ecosystem-based management, and pesticide law and regulation. Catherine has also written on wider matters such as precaution, ‘rights of nature’, the Environmental Rule of Law, deep seabed mining (in New Zealand and the Pacific), and climate adaptation. Catherine’s secondary specialty is indigenous rights, including self-determination, plus the recognition of indigenous cosmologies in law to change the legal relationships between humans and nature. At the 2014 World Parks Congress, the 2016 World Conservation Congress, and 2018 WCEL Congress on the Environmental Rule of Law (EROL) Catherine participated in the WCEL sessions, focusing on such alternative frameworks to better uphold responsibilities for nature. Catherine’s upcoming work includes with IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management (CEM) on how laws and policies can advance ecosystem management principles for biodiversity conservation, the 2020 WCEL EROL Congress, and a 2020 IUCN New Zealand conference on Conservation in a Climate Crisis.

Acceptance of Nomination
Image icon iucn-candidate-declaration-iorns.jpg
Manifesto
PDF icon iorns_manifesto_2020.docx_.pdf

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